Filter Reference

This is a reference document with a list of the filters and their arguments.

Core Arguments

The following are the core arguments that apply to all filters. Note that they are joined to construct the complete lookup expression that is the left hand side of the ORM .filter() call.

field_name

The name of the model field that is filtered against. If this argument is not provided, it defaults the filter’s attribute name on the FilterSet class. Field names can traverse relationships by joining the related parts with the ORM lookup separator (__). e.g., a product’s manufacturer__name.

lookup_expr

The field lookup that should be performed in the filter call. Defaults to exact. The lookup_expr can contain transforms if the expression parts are joined by the ORM lookup separator (__). e.g., filter a datetime by its year part year__gt.

Keyword-only Arguments

The following are optional arguments that can be used to modify the behavior of all filters.

label

The label as it will appear in the HTML, analogous to a form field’s label argument. If a label is not provided, a verbose label will be generated based on the field field_name and the parts of the lookup_expr (see: FILTERS_VERBOSE_LOOKUPS).

method

An optional argument that tells the filter how to handle the queryset. It can accept either a callable or the name of a method on the FilterSet. The callable receives a QuerySet, the name of the model field to filter on, and the value to filter with. It should return a filtered Queryset.

Note that the value is validated by the Filter.field, so raw value transformation and empty value checking should be unnecessary.

class F(FilterSet):
    """Filter for Books by if books are published or not"""
    published = BooleanFilter(field_name='published_on', method='filter_published')

    def filter_published(self, queryset, name, value):
        # construct the full lookup expression.
        lookup = '__'.join([name, 'isnull'])
        return queryset.filter(**{lookup: False})

        # alternatively, you could opt to hardcode the lookup. e.g.,
        # return queryset.filter(published_on__isnull=False)

    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = ['published']


# Callables may also be defined out of the class scope.
def filter_not_empty(queryset, name, value):
    lookup = '__'.join([name, 'isnull'])
    return queryset.filter(**{lookup: False})

class F(FilterSet):
    """Filter for Books by if books are published or not"""
    published = BooleanFilter(field_name='published_on', method=filter_not_empty)

    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = ['published']

distinct

A boolean that specifies whether the Filter will use distinct on the queryset. This option can be used to eliminate duplicate results when using filters that span relationships. Defaults to False.

exclude

A boolean that specifies whether the Filter should use filter or exclude on the queryset. Defaults to False.

required

A boolean that specifies whether the Filter is required or not. Defaults to False.

**kwargs

Any additional keyword arguments are stored as the extra parameter on the filter. They are provided to the accompanying form Field and can be used to provide arguments like choices. Some field-related arguments:

widget

The django.form Widget class which will represent the Filter. In addition to the widgets that are included with Django that you can use there are additional ones that django-filter provides which may be useful:

  • LinkWidget – this displays the options in a manner similar to the way the Django Admin does, as a series of links. The link for the selected option will have class="selected".

  • BooleanWidget – this widget converts its input into Python’s True/False values. It will convert all case variations of True and False into the internal Python values.

  • CSVWidget – this widget expects a comma separated value and converts it into a list of string values. It is expected that the field class handle a list of values as well as type conversion.

  • RangeWidget – this widget is used with RangeFilter to generate two form input elements using a single field.

ModelChoiceFilter and ModelMultipleChoiceFilter arguments

These arguments apply specifically to ModelChoiceFilter and ModelMultipleChoiceFilter only.

queryset

ModelChoiceFilter and ModelMultipleChoiceFilter require a queryset to operate on which must be passed as a kwarg.

to_field_name

If you pass in to_field_name (which gets forwarded to the Django field), it will be used also in the default get_filter_predicate implementation as the model’s attribute.

Filters

CharFilter

This filter does simple character matches, used with CharField and TextField by default.

UUIDFilter

This filter matches UUID values, used with models.UUIDField by default.

BooleanFilter

This filter matches a boolean, either True or False, used with BooleanField and NullBooleanField by default.

ChoiceFilter

This filter matches values in its choices argument. The choices must be explicitly passed when the filter is declared on the FilterSet. For example,

class User(models.Model):
    username = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    first_name = SubCharField(max_length=100)
    last_name = SubSubCharField(max_length=100)

    status = models.IntegerField(choices=STATUS_CHOICES, default=0)

STATUS_CHOICES = (
    (0, 'Regular'),
    (1, 'Manager'),
    (2, 'Admin'),
)

class F(FilterSet):
    status = ChoiceFilter(choices=STATUS_CHOICES)
    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ['status']

ChoiceFilter also has arguments that enable a choice for not filtering, as well as a choice for filtering by None values. Each of the arguments have a corresponding global setting (Settings Reference).

  • empty_label: The display label to use for the select choice to not filter. The choice may be disabled by setting this argument to None. Defaults to FILTERS_EMPTY_CHOICE_LABEL.

  • null_label: The display label to use for the choice to filter by None values. The choice may be disabled by setting this argument to None. Defaults to FILTERS_NULL_CHOICE_LABEL.

  • null_value: The special value to match to enable filtering by None values. This value defaults FILTERS_NULL_CHOICE_VALUE and needs to be a non-empty value ('', None, [], (), {}).

TypedChoiceFilter

The same as ChoiceFilter with the added possibility to convert value to match against. This could be done by using coerce parameter. An example use-case is limiting boolean choices to match against so only some predefined strings could be used as input of a boolean filter:

import django_filters
from distutils.util import strtobool

BOOLEAN_CHOICES = (('false', 'False'), ('true', 'True'),)

class YourFilterSet(django_filters.FilterSet):
    ...
    flag = django_filters.TypedChoiceFilter(choices=BOOLEAN_CHOICES,
                                            coerce=strtobool)

MultipleChoiceFilter

The same as ChoiceFilter except the user can select multiple choices and the filter will form the OR of these choices by default to match items. The filter will form the AND of the selected choices when the conjoined=True argument is passed to this class.

Multiple choices are represented in the query string by reusing the same key with different values (e.g. ‘’?status=Regular&status=Admin’’).

distinct defaults to True as to-many relationships will generally require this.

Advanced Use: Depending on your application logic, when all or no choices are selected, filtering may be a noop. In this case you may wish to avoid the filtering overhead, particularly of the distinct call.

Set always_filter to False after instantiation to enable the default is_noop test.

Override is_noop if you require a different test for your application.

TypedMultipleChoiceFilter

Like MultipleChoiceFilter, but in addition accepts the coerce parameter, as in TypedChoiceFilter.

DateFilter

Matches on a date. Used with DateField by default.

TimeFilter

Matches on a time. Used with TimeField by default.

DateTimeFilter

Matches on a date and time. Used with DateTimeField by default.

IsoDateTimeFilter

Uses IsoDateTimeField to support filtering on ISO 8601 formatted dates, as are often used in APIs, and are employed by default by Django REST Framework.

Example:

class F(FilterSet):
    """Filter for Books by date published, using ISO 8601 formatted dates"""
    published = IsoDateTimeFilter()

    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = ['published']

DurationFilter

Matches on a duration. Used with DurationField by default.

Supports both Django (‘%d %H:%M:%S.%f’) and ISO 8601 formatted durations (but only the sections that are accepted by Python’s timedelta, so no year, month, and week designators, e.g. ‘P3DT10H22M’).

ModelChoiceFilter

Similar to a ChoiceFilter except it works with related models, used for ForeignKey by default.

If automatically instantiated, ModelChoiceFilter will use the default QuerySet for the related field. If manually instantiated you must provide the queryset kwarg.

Example:

class F(FilterSet):
    """Filter for books by author"""
    author = ModelChoiceFilter(queryset=Author.objects.all())

    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = ['author']

The queryset argument also supports callable behavior. If a callable is passed, it will be invoked with Filterset.request as its only argument. This allows you to easily filter by properties on the request object without having to override the FilterSet.__init__.

Note

You should expect that the request object may be None.

def departments(request):
    if request is None:
        return Department.objects.none()

    company = request.user.company
    return company.department_set.all()

class EmployeeFilter(filters.FilterSet):
    department = filters.ModelChoiceFilter(queryset=departments)
    ...

ModelMultipleChoiceFilter

Similar to a MultipleChoiceFilter except it works with related models, used for ManyToManyField by default.

As with ModelChoiceFilter, if automatically instantiated, ModelMultipleChoiceFilter will use the default QuerySet for the related field. If manually instantiated you must provide the queryset kwarg. Like ModelChoiceFilter, the queryset argument has callable behavior.

To use a custom field name for the lookup, you can use to_field_name:

class FooFilter(BaseFilterSet):
    foo = django_filters.filters.ModelMultipleChoiceFilter(
        field_name='attr__uuid',
        to_field_name='uuid',
        queryset=Foo.objects.all(),
    )

If you want to use a custom queryset, e.g. to add annotated fields, this can be done as follows:

class MyMultipleChoiceFilter(django_filters.ModelMultipleChoiceFilter):
    def get_filter_predicate(self, v):
        return {'annotated_field': v.annotated_field}

    def filter(self, qs, value):
        if value:
            qs = qs.annotate_with_custom_field()
            qs = super().filter(qs, value)
        return qs

foo = MyMultipleChoiceFilter(
    to_field_name='annotated_field',
    queryset=Model.objects.annotate_with_custom_field(),
)

The annotate_with_custom_field method would be defined through a custom QuerySet, which then gets used as the model’s manager:

class CustomQuerySet(models.QuerySet):
    def annotate_with_custom_field(self):
        return self.annotate(
            custom_field=Case(
                When(foo__isnull=False,
                     then=F('foo__uuid')),
                When(bar__isnull=False,
                     then=F('bar__uuid')),
                default=None,
            ),
        )

class MyModel(models.Model):
    objects = CustomQuerySet.as_manager()

NumberFilter

Filters based on a numerical value, used with IntegerField, FloatField, and DecimalField by default.

NumberFilter.get_max_validator()

Return a MaxValueValidator instance that will be added to field.validators. By default uses a limit value of 1e50. Return None to disable maximum value validation.

NumericRangeFilter

Filters where a value is between two numerical values, or greater than a minimum or less than a maximum where only one limit value is provided. This filter is designed to work with the Postgres Numerical Range Fields, including IntegerRangeField, BigIntegerRangeField and FloatRangeField (available since Django 1.8). The default widget used is the RangeField.

Regular field lookups are available in addition to several containment lookups, including overlap, contains, and contained_by. More details in the Django docs.

If the lower limit value is provided, the filter automatically defaults to startswith as the lookup and endswith if only the upper limit value is provided.

RangeFilter

Filters where a value is between two numerical values, or greater than a minimum or less than a maximum where only one limit value is provided.

class F(FilterSet):
    """Filter for Books by Price"""
    price = RangeFilter()

    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = ['price']

qs = Book.objects.all().order_by('title')

# Range: Books between 5€ and 15€
f = F({'price_min': '5', 'price_max': '15'}, queryset=qs)

# Min-Only: Books costing more the 11€
f = F({'price_min': '11'}, queryset=qs)

# Max-Only: Books costing less than 19€
f = F({'price_max': '19'}, queryset=qs)

DateRangeFilter

Filter similar to the admin changelist date one, it has a number of common selections for working with date fields.

DateFromToRangeFilter

Similar to a RangeFilter except it uses dates instead of numerical values. It can be used with DateField. It also works with DateTimeField, but takes into consideration only the date.

Example of using the DateField field:

class Comment(models.Model):
    date = models.DateField()
    time = models.TimeField()

class F(FilterSet):
    date = DateFromToRangeFilter()

    class Meta:
        model = Comment
        fields = ['date']

# Range: Comments added between 2016-01-01 and 2016-02-01
f = F({'date_after': '2016-01-01', 'date_before': '2016-02-01'})

# Min-Only: Comments added after 2016-01-01
f = F({'date_after': '2016-01-01'})

# Max-Only: Comments added before 2016-02-01
f = F({'date_before': '2016-02-01'})

Note

When filtering ranges that occurs on DST transition dates DateFromToRangeFilter will use the first valid hour of the day for start datetime and the last valid hour of the day for end datetime. This is OK for most applications, but if you want to customize this behavior you must extend DateFromToRangeFilter and make a custom field for it.

Warning

If you’re using Django prior to 1.9 you may hit AmbiguousTimeError or NonExistentTimeError when start/end date matches DST start/end respectively. This occurs because versions before 1.9 don’t allow to change the DST behavior for making a datetime aware.

Example of using the DateTimeField field:

class Article(models.Model):
    published = models.DateTimeField()

class F(FilterSet):
    published = DateFromToRangeFilter()

    class Meta:
        model = Article
        fields = ['published']

Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-01 8:00')
Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-20 10:00')
Article.objects.create(published='2016-02-10 12:00')

# Range: Articles published between 2016-01-01 and 2016-02-01
f = F({'published_after': '2016-01-01', 'published_before': '2016-02-01'})
assert len(f.qs) == 2

# Min-Only: Articles published after 2016-01-01
f = F({'published_after': '2016-01-01'})
assert len(f.qs) == 3

# Max-Only: Articles published before 2016-02-01
f = F({'published_before': '2016-02-01'})
assert len(f.qs) == 2

DateTimeFromToRangeFilter

Similar to a RangeFilter except it uses datetime format values instead of numerical values. It can be used with DateTimeField.

Example:

class Article(models.Model):
    published = models.DateTimeField()

class F(FilterSet):
    published = DateTimeFromToRangeFilter()

    class Meta:
        model = Article
        fields = ['published']

Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-01 8:00')
Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-01 9:30')
Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-02 8:00')

# Range: Articles published 2016-01-01 between 8:00 and 10:00
f = F({'published_after': '2016-01-01 8:00', 'published_before': '2016-01-01 10:00'})
assert len(f.qs) == 2

# Min-Only: Articles published after 2016-01-01 8:00
f = F({'published_after': '2016-01-01 8:00'})
assert len(f.qs) == 3

# Max-Only: Articles published before 2016-01-01 10:00
f = F({'published_before': '2016-01-01 10:00'})
assert len(f.qs) == 2

IsoDateTimeFromToRangeFilter

Similar to a RangeFilter except it uses ISO 8601 formatted values instead of numerical values. It can be used with IsoDateTimeField.

Example:

class Article(models.Model):
    published = django_filters.IsoDateTimeField()

class F(FilterSet):
    published = IsoDateTimeFromToRangeFilter()

    class Meta:
        model = Article
        fields = ['published']

Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-01T8:00:00+01:00')
Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-01T9:30:00+01:00')
Article.objects.create(published='2016-01-02T8:00:00+01:00')

# Range: Articles published 2016-01-01 between 8:00 and 10:00
f = F({'published_after': '2016-01-01T8:00:00+01:00', 'published_before': '2016-01-01T10:00:00+01:00'})
assert len(f.qs) == 2

# Min-Only: Articles published after 2016-01-01 8:00
f = F({'published_after': '2016-01-01T8:00:00+01:00'})
assert len(f.qs) == 3

# Max-Only: Articles published before 2016-01-01 10:00
f = F({'published_before': '2016-01-01T10:00:00+0100'})
assert len(f.qs) == 2

TimeRangeFilter

Similar to a RangeFilter except it uses time format values instead of numerical values. It can be used with TimeField.

Example:

class Comment(models.Model):
    date = models.DateField()
    time = models.TimeField()

class F(FilterSet):
    time = TimeRangeFilter()

    class Meta:
        model = Comment
        fields = ['time']

# Range: Comments added between 8:00 and 10:00
f = F({'time_after': '8:00', 'time_before': '10:00'})

# Min-Only: Comments added after 8:00
f = F({'time_after': '8:00'})

# Max-Only: Comments added before 10:00
f = F({'time_before': '10:00'})

AllValuesFilter

This is a ChoiceFilter whose choices are the current values in the database. So if in the DB for the given field you have values of 5, 7, and 9 each of those is present as an option. This is similar to the default behavior of the admin.

AllValuesMultipleFilter

This is a MultipleChoiceFilter whose choices are the current values in the database. So if in the DB for the given field you have values of 5, 7, and 9 each of those is present as an option. This is similar to the default behavior of the admin.

LookupChoiceFilter

A combined filter that allows users to select the lookup expression from a dropdown.

  • lookup_choices is an optional argument that accepts multiple input formats, and is ultimately normalized as the choices used in the lookup dropdown. See .get_lookup_choices() for more information.

  • field_class is an optional argument that allows you to set the inner form field class used to validate the value. Default: forms.CharField

ex:

price = django_filters.LookupChoiceFilter(
    field_class=forms.DecimalField,
    lookup_choices=[
        ('exact', 'Equals'),
        ('gt', 'Greater than'),
        ('lt', 'Less than'),
    ]
)

BaseInFilter

This is a base class used for creating IN lookup filters. It is expected that this filter class is used in conjunction with another filter class, as this class only validates that the incoming value is comma-separated. The secondary filter is then used to validate the individual values.

Example:

class NumberInFilter(BaseInFilter, NumberFilter):
    pass

class F(FilterSet):
    id__in = NumberInFilter(field_name='id', lookup_expr='in')

    class Meta:
        model = User

User.objects.create(username='alex')
User.objects.create(username='jacob')
User.objects.create(username='aaron')
User.objects.create(username='carl')

# In: User with IDs 1 and 3.
f = F({'id__in': '1,3'})
assert len(f.qs) == 2

BaseRangeFilter

This is a base class used for creating RANGE lookup filters. It behaves identically to BaseInFilter with the exception that it expects only two comma-separated values.

Example:

class NumberRangeFilter(BaseRangeFilter, NumberFilter):
    pass

class F(FilterSet):
    id__range = NumberRangeFilter(field_name='id', lookup_expr='range')

    class Meta:
        model = User

User.objects.create(username='alex')
User.objects.create(username='jacob')
User.objects.create(username='aaron')
User.objects.create(username='carl')

# Range: User with IDs between 1 and 3.
f = F({'id__range': '1,3'})
assert len(f.qs) == 3

OrderingFilter

Enable queryset ordering. As an extension of ChoiceFilter it accepts two additional arguments that are used to build the ordering choices.

  • fields is a mapping of {model field name: parameter name}. The parameter names are exposed in the choices and mask/alias the field names used in the order_by() call. Similar to field choices, fields accepts the ‘list of two-tuples’ syntax that retains order. fields may also just be an iterable of strings. In this case, the field names simply double as the exposed parameter names.

  • field_labels is an optional argument that allows you to customize the display label for the corresponding parameter. It accepts a mapping of {field name: human readable label}. Keep in mind that the key is the field name, and not the exposed parameter name.

class UserFilter(FilterSet):
    account = CharFilter(field_name='username')
    status = NumberFilter(field_name='status')

    o = OrderingFilter(
        # tuple-mapping retains order
        fields=(
            ('username', 'account'),
            ('first_name', 'first_name'),
            ('last_name', 'last_name'),
        ),

        # labels do not need to retain order
        field_labels={
            'username': 'User account',
        }
    )

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ['first_name', 'last_name']

>>> UserFilter().filters['o'].field.choices
[
    ('account', 'User account'),
    ('-account', 'User account (descending)'),
    ('first_name', 'First name'),
    ('-first_name', 'First name (descending)'),
    ('last_name', 'Last name'),
    ('-last_name', 'Last name (descending)'),
]

Additionally, you can just provide your own choices if you require explicit control over the exposed options. For example, when you might want to disable descending sort options.

class UserFilter(FilterSet):
    account = CharFilter(field_name='username')
    status = NumberFilter(field_name='status')

    o = OrderingFilter(
        choices=(
            ('account', 'Account'),
        ),
        fields={
            'username': 'account',
        },
    )

This filter is also CSV-based, and accepts multiple ordering params. The default select widget does not enable the use of this, but it is useful for APIs. SelectMultiple widgets are not compatible, given that they are not able to retain selection order.

Adding Custom filter choices

If you wish to sort by non-model fields, you’ll need to add custom handling to an OrderingFilter subclass. For example, if you want to sort by a computed ‘relevance’ factor, you would need to do something like the following:

class CustomOrderingFilter(django_filters.OrderingFilter):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.extra['choices'] += [
            ('relevance', 'Relevance'),
            ('-relevance', 'Relevance (descending)'),
        ]


    def filter(self, qs, value):
        # OrderingFilter is CSV-based, so `value` is a list
        if any(v in ['relevance', '-relevance'] for v in value):
            # sort queryset by relevance
            return ...

        return super().filter(qs, value)