Django query filter with variable column

Question

I am trying to filter a queryset using

info=members.filter(name__contains=search_string)

The problem I have is I do not know which field the user wants to search ahead of time so I need to substitute 'name' with a variable as in

variable_column = 'name'
search_type = 'contains'
filter = variable_column + '__' + search_type
info=members.filter(filter=search_string)

How do I do that?

Rich

Answer 1

Almost there..

members.filter(**{'string__contains': 'search_string'})

To understand what it's doing, google around : ) Understanding kwargs in Python

** expands dictionary key/value pairs to keyword argument - value pairs.

To adapt your example to the solution:

variable_column = 'name'
search_type = 'contains'
filter = variable_column + '__' + search_type
info=members.filter(**{ filter: search_string })