Django Simple Search

This django form class creates a search form for a model and generates a query from the submitted data.

To use, extend the BaseSearchForm class, defining a Meta class with the following values:

• base_qs is the queryset to search, ie. MyModel.objects

• search_fields are the fields to search, using the same syntax as the django admin directive of the same name, ie.

  • 'fieldname' - field must contain the search string
  • '^fieldname' - field must start with the search string
  • '=fieldname' - field must exactly equal the search string
  • '@fieldname' - performs a fulltext search (mysql/postgres only) on field

Related model fields can also be searched, ie 'mycategory__name' will search the name field on the mycategory model.

Custom fields can also be added to filter the results - by default, these perform an exact-match search on the model field of the same name. A prepare_FIELDNAME method can be defined for each custom field for advanced queries - this method should return a Q instance for addition to the overall query.

Example form class (myapp/forms.py)

from django.db.models import Q
from simple_search import BaseSearchForm
from myapp.models import MyModel, MyCategory


class MyModelSearchForm(BaseSearchForm):
    class Meta:
        base_qs = MyModel.objects
        search_fields = ('^name', 'description', '=id') 

    """ 
    A custom addition - the absence of a prepare_category method means
    the query will search for an exact match on this field.
    """
    category = forms.ModelChoiceField(
        queryset = MyCategory.objects.all(),
        required = False
    )

    """ 
    This field creates a custom query addition via the prepare_start_date
    method.
    """
    start_date = forms.DateField(
        required = False,
        input_formats = ('%Y-%m-%d',),
    )
    def prepare_start_date(self):
        if self.cleaned_data['start_date']:
            return Q(creation_date__gte=self.cleaned_data['start_date'])
        else:
            return ""

Example use in a view (myapp/views.py)

from django.shortcuts import render_to_response
from django.template import RequestContext
from myapp.forms import MyModelSearchForm

def search(request):

    if request.GET:
        form = MyModelSearchForm(request.GET)
        if form.is_valid():
            results = form.get_result_queryset()
        else:
            results = []
    else:
        form = MyModelSearchForm()
        results = []


    return render_to_response(
        'search.html',
        RequestContext(request, {
            'form': form,
            'results': results,
        })
    )

Demo

You can try it out on this site, either from the search box in the footer or here.

Get the code

You can download or view the code on github.