Many-to-many relationships

With a through model

class Skill(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    description = models.TextField()

class Developer(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    skills = models.ManyToManyField(Skill, through='DeveloperSkill')

class DeveloperSkill(models.Model):
    """Developer skills with respective ability and experience."""

    class Meta:
        order_with_respect_to = 'developer'
        """Sort skills per developer so that he can choose which
        skills to display on top for instance.
        """
        unique_together = [
            ('developer', 'skill'),
        ]
        """It's recommended that a together unique index be created on
        `(developer,skill)`. This is especially useful if your database is
        being access/modified from outside django. You will find that such an
        index is created by django when an explicit through model is not
        being used.
        """


    ABILITY_CHOICES = [
        (1, "Beginner"),
        (2, "Accustomed"),
        (3, "Intermediate"),
        (4, "Strong knowledge"),
        (5, "Expert"),
    ]

    developer = models.ForeignKey(Developer, models.CASCADE)
    skill = models.ForeignKey(Skill, models.CASCADE)
    """The many-to-many relation between both models is made by the
    above two foreign keys.

    Other fields (below) store information about the relation itself.
    """

    ability = models.PositiveSmallIntegerField(choices=ABILITY_CHOICES)
    experience = models.PositiveSmallIntegerField(help_text="Years of experience.")

It’s recommended that a together unique index be created on (developer,skill). This is especially useful if your database is being access/modified from outside django. You will find that such an index is created by django when an explicit through model is not being used.

Simple Many To Many Relationship.

class Person(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    description = models.TextField()

class Club(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    members = models.ManyToManyField(Person)

Here we define a relationship where a club has many Persons and members and a Person can be a member of several different Clubs.

Though we define only two models, django actually creates three tables in the database for us. These are myapp_person, myapp_club and myapp_club_members. Django automatically creates a unique index on myapp_club_members(club_id,person_id) columns.

Using ManyToMany Fields

We use this model from the first example:

class Person(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    description = models.TextField()

class Club(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    members = models.ManyToManyField(Person)

Add Tom and Bill to the Nightclub:

tom = Person.objects.create(name="Tom", description="A nice guy")
bill = Person.objects.create(name="Bill", description="Good dancer")

nightclub = Club.objects.create(name="The Saturday Night Club")
nightclub.members.add(tom, bill)

Who is in the club?

for person in nightclub.members.all():
    print(person.name)

Will give you

Tom
Bill