import re from django.db.models import Q # search script from http://www.julienphalip.com/blog/2008/08/16/adding-search-django-site-snap/ def normalize_query(query_string, findterms=re.compile(r'"([^"]+)"|(\S+)').findall, normspace=re.compile(r'\s{2,}').sub): ''' Splits the query string in invidual keywords, getting rid of unecessary spaces and grouping quoted words together. Example: >>> normalize_query(' some random words "with quotes " and spaces') ['some', 'random', 'words', 'with quotes', 'and', 'spaces'] ''' return [normspace(' ', (t[0] or t[1]).strip()) for t in findterms(query_string)] def get_query(query_string, search_fields): ''' Returns a query, that is a combination of Q objects. That combination aims to search keywords within a model by testing the given search fields. ''' query = None # Query to search for every search term terms = normalize_query(query_string) for term in terms: or_query = None # Query to search for a given term in each field for field_name in search_fields: q = Q(**{"%s__icontains" % field_name: term}) if or_query is None: or_query = q else: or_query = or_query | q if query is None: query = or_query else: query = query & or_query return query