[Django]-How to auto insert the current user when creating an object in django admin?

Let’s say that user B saves a record created by user A. By using this approach above the record will be saved with user B. In some scenarios this might not be the best choice, because each user who saves that record will be “stealing” it. There’s a workaround to this, that will save the user only once (the one who creates it):

models.py

from django.contrib.auth.models import User

class Car(models.Model):
    created_by = models.ForeignKey(User,editable=False,null=True,blank=True)
    car_name = models.CharField(max_length=40)

admin.py

from . models import *

class CarAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('car_name','created_by')
    actions = None

    def save_model(self, request, obj, form, change):
        if not obj.created_by:
            obj.created_by = request.user
        obj.save()

If you don’t want to keep foreignkey in you model to user, then in your admin.py override save method

obj.author = request.user.username
obj.save()

This will store the username who is logged in your db.

It’s time for a better solution override the get_form method

let’s say we have this model

models.py

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import User


class Post(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=256)
    content = models.TextField()
    author = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)


    def __str__(self):
        return self.title

admin.py

class PostAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    # you should prevent author field to be manipulated 
    readonly_fields = ['author']

    def get_form(self, request, obj=None, **kwargs):
        # here insert/fill the current user name or id from request
        Post.author = request.user
        return super().get_form(request, obj, **kwargs)


    def save_model(self, request, obj, form, change):
        obj.author = request.user
        obj.last_modified_by = request.user
        obj.save()


admin.site.register(Post, PostAdmin)

As per http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/admin/#django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.prepopulated_fields you can’t use ForeignKey with the prepopulated_field admin directive, alas

But this thread might help you. In my answer I also link to a Google-scanned version of Pro Django, which has a great solution for this kind of thing. Ideally, am sure it’s better if you can buy the book, but Google seems to have most of the relevant chapter anyway.

You can’t do it directly. However you can achieve this creating middleware and using current user as global variable. But there is a package already doing it : django-currentuser

First install it then

setting.py

 MIDDLEWARE = (
    ...,
    'django_currentuser.middleware.ThreadLocalUserMiddleware',
)

and import it in the model file

from django_currentuser.middleware import ( get_current_user, get_current_authenticated_user)

And use;

class Foo(models.Model):
    created_by = CurrentUserField()
    updated_by = CurrentUserField(on_update=True)