CODEWITHSUNDEEP
djangodjango-models
Micah Pearce
Micah Pearce

Reputation: 1945

Django: Best way to create a multiple choice field

WHen creating a multiple choice option in Django, there seems to be two different ways to do it - option a or option b, see below. What advantages do each option have over the other. Is one generally better than another? Am I missing a better way to do it?

option a

TYPE_CHOICES=(
    ('teacher', ("Teacher")),
    ('student', ("Student")),
)
user_type  = models.CharField(max_length=20, default='student', choices=TYPE_CHOICES)

option b

TYPE_CHOICES=(
    (1, ("Teacher")),
    (2, ("Student")),
)
user_type = models.PositiveSmallIntegerField(choices=TYPE_CHOICES, default=1)

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2643

Answers (2)

doubleo46
doubleo46

Reputation: 495

I can suggest you a third option, it's little extra work but gives you code readability and avoid a text comparison later on.

Define an enum

class UserTypeEnum(enum.Enum):
    """Define enums for user type"""
    TEACHER = 0
    STUDENT = 1

in model

class Employee(models.Model)
   user_type = models.IntegerField(choices=UserTypeEnum.choices(), 
   default=UserTypeEnum.TEACHER)

then you can do checks like 

if user_type == UserTypeEnum.TEACHER:
   ...

Upvotes: 4

blhsing
blhsing

Reputation: 106553

In the old days when every byte of memory and storage was precious storing these choices as small integers made sense, but now it has no real tangible benefit. Storing it as strings makes the code more readable, makes the database more manageable and more easily migratable. I would therefore advise using strings as option values unless you really care about the small difference in storage costs.

Upvotes: 3

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