Order Django admin change list column by output of __unicode()__ method

Answer 1

Django ordering is done in the database level. Unless you store the result of your unicode function in the DB, django is not going to be able to natively return results ordered in that fashion.

Storing an ordering value in the DB is probably the most expedient way to solve this problem.

Answer 2

Following Paul McMillan's suggestion, I added the following line to the class definition of Person:

ordering_string = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

I also put the this above the PersonName definition in models.py:

def post_save_person_and_person_name(sender, **kwargs):
    person_name = kwargs['instance']
    person = person_name.person
    if person.ordering_string != unicode(person)[0:254]:
        person.ordering_string = unicode(person)[0:254]
        super(Person, person).save()

and put this below the PersonName definition in models.py:

post_save.connect(post_save_person_and_person_name, sender=PersonName)

So far, so good.

I think I might be able to improve on it by replacing the save() call above with a queryset update() . I'd welcome suggestions on that front!