Setting and Getting attributes on model part 5 | python is Django

Python provides useful tools for getting and setting attributes on objects without knowing the name of the attribute in advance. The standard way of accessing attributes on objects is by using #getattr and #setattr() . However, #django , a web development framework for #python , has a different approach for accessing model fields.

Django provides a class method called #add_to_class() that should be used as a substitute for #setattr() when working with model fields. The syntax and semantics of #add_to_class() are slightly different from traditional functions because it is a class method. This means that the class is provided implicitly, rather than being an explicit first argument.

The add_to_class() method checks the provided value for the presence of a contribute_to_class() method, and calls it if it exists. If the method does not exist, the standard setattr() function is used to add the value to the model. These behaviors are mutually exclusive, which means that only one will happen in a given add_to_class() call.

It's important to realize that this approach isn't just for Django's own internal code. If an application needs to add arbitrary objects as attributes to models, they must call add_to_class(). This way, developers working with the application can pass any object in, and be assured that it will be handled the same as if it had been applied directly on the model's class definition.