UserProfile documentation (not extensive enough)

[Cal Leeming]

​https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/#storing-additional-information-about-users#

The method get_profile() does not create the profile, if it does not exist. You need to register a handler for the signal django.db.models.signals.post_save on the User model, and, in the handler, if created=True, create the associated user profile.

However, it does not show how to do this. For new users, this will be quite off putting, especially as most people skim the documentation, and don't bother with the 'fat'.

May I suggest the documentation is included to use the following snippet:
​http://stackoverflow.com/questions/44109/extending-the-user-model-with-custom-fields-in-django

#in models.py
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.db.models.signals import post_save

class UserProfile(models.Model):  
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)  
    #other fields here

    def __str__(self):  
          return "%s's profile" % self.user  

def create_user_profile(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):  
    if created:  
       profile, created = UserProfile.objects.get_or_create(user=instance)  

post_save.connect(create_user_profile, sender=User) 

#in settings.py
AUTH_PROFILE_MODULE = 'YOURAPP.UserProfile'

[Aymeric Augustin]

Yes, illustrating the text with code samples would help. The link to the Django Book may become redundant, then.

[Cal Leeming]

Nice, thanks for the quick turn around on this guys!

[Julien Phalip]

Replying to aaugustin:

Yes, illustrating the text with code samples would help. The link to the Django Book may become redundant, then.

Yep, the link to the Django book should be removed. See #16102. Both tickets could be fixed in one go.

[Stephen Burrows]

I already removed the link. Forgot to mention that, sorry.

[Julien Phalip]

OK, I've closed #16102 as a dupe.

This patch is looking good, however a few improvements should be made in the code snippet about the post_save signal:

• Do not say "perhaps in models.py", but instead provide specific examples of where this code could be placed.
• Since a new user is created, it is unnecessary to use UserProfile.objects.get_or_create. UserProfile.objects.create can be used instead.
• unicorns and favorite_animal are both required fields, so you need to either make them optional or provide values for them when creating the UserProfile instance.

[Julien Phalip]

Sorry, favorite_animal has a default value and unicorns is a M2M, so no need to provide values to UserProfile.objects.create for those.

[Stephen Burrows]

This patch should fix the problems julien pointed out.

[Julien Phalip]

Looks good, thanks!

[Ramiro Morales]

In [16450]:

Fixed #16207 -- Enhanced documentation about user profile model instance creation. Thanks foxwhisper for the report, melinath for the patch and Julien for reviewing it.