How to go from a Model base to derived class in Django?

Question

Assuming a simple set of inherited Model classes, like this:

class BaseObject(models.Model): 
    some_field = models.SomeField(...)

class AwesomeObject(BaseObject): 
    awesome_field = models.AwesomeField(...)

class ExcellentObject(BaseObject): 
    excellent_field = models.ExcellentField(...)

and a query that looks like this:

found_objects = BaseObject.objects.filter(some_field='bogus')

What's the best way to take each found object and turn it back into it's derived class? The code I'm using now is like this:

for found in found_objects:
    if hasattr(found, 'awesomeobject'): 
        ProcessAwesome(found.awesomeobject)
    elif hasattr(found, 'excellentobject'): 
        ProcessExcellent(found.excellentobject): 

But, it feels like this is an abuse of "hasattr". Is there a better way to do this without creating an explicit "type" field on the base class?

Answer 1

For this specific problem, there is django-polymorphic. It works by using the content type framework in Django to store the model ID which the derived table points to. When you evaluate the queryset, it will upcast all models their specific type.

You'll get:

>>> BaseProject.objects.all()
[ <AwesomeObject>, <ExcellentObject>, <BaseObject>, <AwesomeObject> ]