Django AttributeError " " object has no attribute " "

Question

I'm working on CS50w network on the followings/followers feature. I am stuck on counting the followers:

This is my model:

class Following(models.Model):
    """Tracks the following of a user"""
    user = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    followings = models.ManyToManyField(User, blank=True, related_name="followers")

Using the code below, I can successfully get the followings count:

user = Following.objects.get(user=user_instance)
followings = user.followings.count()

However, I can't get the followers, this is what I tried:

user = Following.objects.get(user=user_instance)
followers = user.followers.count()

It is worth mentioning that if I passed the user and tried to get the `followers', I get it successfully using:

{{user.followers.count}}

However, I can't use this method since I need to handle corner cases in the backend.

I tried another method, however another problem arises. I tried to pass the user to the HTMl. However if the user lacks the followings or followers. I couldn't handle the situation correctly.

Here is my code to get a better idea:

try:
    # Gets the profile 
    profile = Following.objects.get(user=user_instance)

except Following.DoesNotExist:
    followings = 0             # I know these are wrong, but IDK what to do
    followers = 0

I could use {{profile.followings.count}} & {{profile.followers.count}} to obtain them.

What if there isn't followers or followings in the first place?

local variable 'profile' referenced before assignment

Sergey Pugach · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-07 15:13:06Z

2

The issue is that

Here it's not user object but Following model instance, that is why it's working.

user = Following.objects.get(user=user_instance)
followings = user.followings.count()

Here you writing user, but it's still Following model instance

# that is wrong
user = Following.objects.get(user=user_instance)
followers = user.followers.count()

You need to get user instance first with

user = User.objects.get(...)
followers = user.followers.count()

Or you can do like, but it doesn't make sense as you can get followers right from following instance, but just to show how would your approach work:

following_instance = Following.objects.get(user=user_instance)
user = following_instance.user
followers = user.followers.count()

answered May 7, 2021 at 15:13

Sergey Pugach

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2 Comments

user15440172 Over a year ago

Thanks for the help. I managed to get it right. However, I still didn't understand why getting the followers from the Following object didn't work. May you clarify?

Sergey Pugach Over a year ago

In order to get it from Following you need do: following_instance= Following.objects.get(user=user_instance) and then followings = following_instance.followings.count() <- this how you can get followers from Following object.

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