how to update a field without change auto-now field?

Question

In a loop and automatically, that is, I always check all users once every 10 minutes, and I may need to update a bool field from them How can I not change my current field when I update that bool field ?

class Client(models.Model):
    user = models.ForeignKey ... 
    last_activity = models.DateTimeField(_("Last Activity"), auto_now=True)
    joined = models.BooleanField(_("Joined in Default Channel"), default = False)
    ...
    ... 

i want to update joined field without change last_activity.

how can i do?

Answer 1

If you have a Client object, you can specify the fields to update with the update_fields=… parameter of the .save(…) method [Django-doc] of your model:

c1 = …  # (some client)
c1.joined = True
c1.save(update_fields=['joined'])

If you want to update Clients with a single query (or in bulk), you can work with .update(…) [Django-doc]:

c1 = Client.objects.filter(pk=some_pk).update(
    joined=True
)

Answer 2

DateTime field is updated when .save() method is called, you can update needed field(s) using .update method.