Python – Can “list_display” in a Django ModelAdmin display attributes of ForeignKey fields

djangodjango-admindjango-modelsmodeladminpython

I have a Person model that has a foreign key relationship to Book, which has a number of fields, but I'm most concerned about author (a standard CharField).

With that being said, in my PersonAdmin model, I'd like to display book.author using list_display:

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ['book.author',]

I've tried all of the obvious methods for doing so, but nothing seems to work.

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

As another option, you can do look ups like:

class UserAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = (..., 'get_author')
    
    def get_author(self, obj):
        return obj.book.author
    get_author.short_description = 'Author'
    get_author.admin_order_field = 'book__author'

Since Django 3.2 you can use display() decorator:

class UserAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = (..., 'get_author')
    
    @display(ordering='book__author', description='Author')
    def get_author(self, obj):
        return obj.book.author