[python] How do I convert a Django QuerySet into list of dicts?

How can I convert a Django QuerySet into a list of dicts? I haven't found an answer to this so I'm wondering if I'm missing some sort of common helper function that everyone uses.

Type Cast to List

    job_reports = JobReport.objects.filter(job_id=job_id, status=1).values('id', 'name')

    json.dumps(list(job_reports))

Simply put list(yourQuerySet).

You need DjangoJSONEncoder and list to make your Queryset to json, ref: Python JSON serialize a Decimal object

import json
from django.core.serializers.json import DjangoJSONEncoder


blog = Blog.objects.all().values()
json.dumps(list(blog), cls=DjangoJSONEncoder)

The .values() method will return you a result of type ValuesQuerySet which is typically what you need in most cases.

But if you wish, you could turn ValuesQuerySet into a native Python list using Python list comprehension as illustrated in the example below.

result = Blog.objects.values()             # return ValuesQuerySet object
list_result = [entry for entry in result]  # converts ValuesQuerySet into Python list
return list_result

I find the above helps if you are writing unit tests and need to assert that the expected return value of a function matches the actual return value, in which case both expected_result and actual_result must be of the same type (e.g. dictionary).

actual_result = some_function()
expected_result = {
    # dictionary content here ...
}
assert expected_result == actual_result

You could define a function using model_to_dict as follows:

def queryset_to_list(qs,fields=None, exclude=None):
    my_list=[]
    for x in qs:
        my_list.append(model_to_dict(x,fields=fields,exclude=exclude))
    return my_list

Suppose your Model has following fields

id
name
email

Run following commands in django shell

>>>qs=<yourmodel>.objects.all()
>>>list=queryset_to_dict(qs)
>>>list
[{'id':1, 'name':'abc', 'email':'[email protected]'},{'id':2, 'name':'xyz', 'email':'[email protected]'}]

Say you want only id and name in the list of queryset dictionary

>>>qs=<yourmodel>.objects.all()
>>>list=queryset_to_dict(qs,fields=['id','name'])
>>>list
[{'id':1, 'name':'abc'},{'id':2, 'name':'xyz'}]

Similarly you can exclude fields in your output.

You can use the values() method on the dict you got from the Django model field you make the queries on and then you can easily access each field by a index value.

Call it like this -

myList = dictOfSomeData.values()
itemNumberThree = myList[2] #If there's a value in that index off course...

You do not exactly define what the dictionaries should look like, but most likely you are referring to QuerySet.values(). From the official django documentation:

Returns a ValuesQuerySet — a QuerySet subclass that returns dictionaries when used as an iterable, rather than model-instance objects.

Each of those dictionaries represents an object, with the keys corresponding to the attribute names of model objects.

If you need native data types for some reason (e.g. JSON serialization) this is my quick 'n' dirty way to do it:

data = [{'id': blog.pk, 'name': blog.name} for blog in blogs]

As you can see building the dict inside the list is not really DRY so if somebody knows a better way ...