Create Django model or update if exists

It's unclear whether your question is asking for the get_or_create method (available from at least Django 1.3) or the update_or_create method (new in Django 1.7). It depends on how you want to update the user object.

Sample use is as follows:

# In both cases, the call will get a person object with matching
# identifier or create one if none exists; if a person is created,
# it will be created with name equal to the value in `name`.

# In this case, if the Person already exists, its existing name is preserved
person, created = Person.objects.get_or_create(
        identifier=identifier, defaults={"name": name}
)

# In this case, if the Person already exists, its name is updated
person, created = Person.objects.update_or_create(
        identifier=identifier, defaults={"name": name}
)

If you're looking for "update if exists else create" use case, please refer to @Zags excellent answer

---

Django already has a get_or_create, https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/querysets/#get-or-create

For you it could be :

id = 'some identifier'
person, created = Person.objects.get_or_create(identifier=id)

if created:
   # means you have created a new person
else:
   # person just refers to the existing one

Django has support for this, check get_or_create

person, created = Person.objects.get_or_create(name='abc')
if created:
    # A new person object created
else:
    # person object already exists