[Daniel] Copying A Model Object In Django

Since I found no resources online about this, I thought I ought to post. My situation is that I have an model object in Django and I would like to create a copy of the object so the user can easily duplicate an existing item. This was my solution:

# In views.py...

def copy_object(request, crazy_object_id):

    crazy_object_to_copy = get_object_or_404(Crazyobject, pk=crazy_object_id)



    new_object = Crazyobject()

    new_object.__dict__ = crazy_object_to_copy.__dict__

    new_object.id = None

    new_object.save()



    return HttpResponseRedirect("/crazyobjects/edit/%s" % (new_object.id))

This loads up the old object, creates a new (blank) object and copies over the underlying dictionary. Once this is complete, the "new_object" exactly duplicates the original. Set the id to "None" so it doesn't overwrite the original then save your new object. Finally, reuse your existing edit code via the Redirect.



It feels a little sloppy to me in practice but I'm not sure if there is a better way and it does work, which is good enough for me for the time being.