Create Django model or update if exists

Question

I want to create a model object, like Person, if person's id doesn't not exist, or I will get that person object.

The code to create a new person as following:

class Person(models.Model):
    identifier = models.CharField(max_length = 10)
    name = models.CharField(max_length = 20)
    objects = PersonManager()

class PersonManager(models.Manager):
    def create_person(self, identifier):
        person = self.create(identifier = identifier)
        return person

But I don't know where to check and get the existing person object.

Answer 1

It's unclear whether your question is asking for the get_or_create method (available from at least Django 1.3) or the update_or_create method (new in Django 1.7). It depends on how you want to update the user object.

Sample use is as follows:

# In both cases, the call will get a person object with matching
# identifier or create one if none exists; if a person is created,
# it will be created with name equal to the value in `name`.

# In this case, if the Person already exists, its existing name is preserved
person, created = Person.objects.get_or_create(
        identifier=identifier, defaults={"name": name}
)

# In this case, if the Person already exists, its name is updated
person, created = Person.objects.update_or_create(
        identifier=identifier, defaults={"name": name}
)