Django

Order many-to-many field by the order values were inserted

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Welcome to Programming Tutorial official website. Today - we are going to cover how to solve / find the solution of this error Order many-to-many field by the order values were inserted on this date .
# models.py
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
# Create your models here.
class Profile(models.Model):
    user = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    avatar = models.ImageField(upload_to=avatar_photo_upload, blank=True)
    banner = models.ImageField(upload_to=banner_photo_upload, blank=True)

    bio = models.TextField(max_length=150, blank=True)

    date_joined = models.DateField(auto_now_add=True)
    time_joined = models.TimeField(auto_now_add=True)

    def __str__(self) -> str:
        return self.user.username

class Friend(models.Model):
    # The friends, sender first, reciever second
    friends = models.ManyToManyField(Profile)

    # accepted or rejected
    accepted = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    rejected = models.BooleanField(default=False)

    date_added = models.DateField(auto_now=True)
    time_added = models.TimeField(auto_now=True)

    def __str__(self):
        if self.accepted == False and self.rejected == False:
            return f'{" sent a request to ".join([i.user.username for i in self.friends.all()])}'
        else:
            if self.accepted == True and self.rejected == True:
                return f'{" was a friend of ".join([i.user.username for i in self.friends.all()])}'
            elif self.accepted == True and self.rejected == False:
                return f'{" is a friend of ".join([i.user.username for i in self.friends.all()])}'
            else:
                return f'{" was rejected as a friend by ".join([i.user.username for i in self.friends.all()])}'

The friends field is a many-to-many field, Understanding my problem with an example:

for example -> Profile object a is created, and then Profile object b. Now I add profile object b in the friend field and then object a, but the friend field orders them in a then b…

How do order them by time added.

Thank you.

EDIT:

Expected output: The same order in which the values were inserted.

Answer

Django Many To Many Insert Ordering

Django doesn’t guarantee to preserve the order of many-to-many relationships. If you need this, you should use a through table with an explicit ‘order’ field.