django-author

Update author and updated_by fields of models automatically

This library is used for updating author and updated_by fields automatically with request.user when the model has created/changed.

Also if you are too lazy to write author = models.ForeignKey(User, _('author'), related_name ...) to every model, just add @with_author decorator to the top of class makes you happy.

Install

This library is on PyPI so you can install it with:

pip install django-author

or from github:

pip install git+https://github.com/lambdalisue/django-author.git

Usage

1. Add 'author' to your INSTALLED_APPS on settings.py

2. Add 'author.middlewares.AuthorDefaultBackendMiddleware' to your MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES if you use default author backend

3. Add author and updated_by field to models which you want to have author and updated_by fields manually or use @with_author decorator like below:

   from django.db import models
   from author.decorators import with_author
   
   @with_author
   class Entry(models.Model):
       title = models.CharField('title', max_length=50)
       body = models.TextField('body')
   

4. Done. Now you have automatically updated author and updated_by fields

   If you are in truble, see author_test directory for usage sample.

5. If you want to forbid modification of the updated_by field for some actions, just set instance._change_updated_by = False before calling save().

Settings

AUTHOR_BACKEND

Class or string path of backend. the backend is used to determine user when object is created/updated.

AUTHOR_CREATED_BY_FIELD_NAME

A name of field. the setting also interfer the name of field created by @with_author decorator. default is 'author'

AUTHOR_UPDATED_BY_FIELD_NAME

A name of field. the setting also interfer the name of field created by @with_author decorator. default is 'updated_by'

AUTHOR_DO_NOT_UPDATE_WHILE_USER_IS_NONE

Do not update author or updated_by field when detected user is None. default is True

AUTHOR_MODELS

Check signals for only these models. default is None

AUTHOR_IGNORE_MODELS

Do not check signals for these models. default is ['auth.user', 'auth.group', 'auth.permission', 'contenttype.contenttype']

Backend

The default backend use thread_locals storategy to get current request in signal call.

If you want to change the strategy or whatever, create your own backend.

A backend is a class which have get_user method to determine current user.

AuthorDefaultBackend

Default backend. This backend return None when no request found or AnonymousUser create/update object.

AuthorSystemUserBackend

System user backend. This backend return system user when no request found or AnonymousUser create/update object.

system user is determined with get_system_user method and default is User.objects.get(pk=1)