unexpected behavior when using gettattr for related object

[elonzh]

Assuming we have a model like that:

class UserProfile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, related_name="profile", on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    ...

An user may not have an UserProfile instance so we will use such logic:

profile = getattr(request.user, "profile", UserProfile(user=request.user))

But django will always return the default value no matter request.user.profile exists or not.

Here is the poc:

In [1]: u = User.objects.get(username='s')

In [2]: u.profile
Out[2]: <UserProfile: UserProfile object (5)>

In [3]: getattr(u, 'profile', UserProfile())
Out[3]: <UserProfile: UserProfile object (5)>

In [4]: getattr(u, 'profile', UserProfile(user=u))
Out[4]: <UserProfile: UserProfile object (None)>

the problem is UserProfile(user=u) will update the User.profile when we init UserProfile.