How do I invalidate @cached_property in django

I created a Django model mixin that invalidates all @cached_property properties on the model when model.refresh_from_db() is called. You can also manually invalidate the cached properties with model.invalidate_cached_properties().

from django.utils.functional import cached_property


class InvalidateCachedPropertiesMixin():

    def refresh_from_db(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.invalidate_cached_properties()
        return super().refresh_from_db(*args, **kwargs)
            
    def invalidate_cached_properties(self):
        for key, value in self.__class__.__dict__.items():
            if isinstance(value, cached_property):
                self.__dict__.pop(key, None)

https://gitlab.com/snippets/1747035

Inspired by Thomas Baden's answer.

Edited heavily due to ongoing development... Now supports multiple tags for a given cached_property.

I encountered a similar issue, wherein I had a set of related cached_property objects which all needed simultaneous invalidation. I solved it in this manner:

1. Extend cached_property to accept tag values and include a decorator classmethod:

   def __init__(self, func, *tags):
       self.func = func
       self.tags = frozenset(tags)
   
   @classmethod
   def tag(cls *tags):
       return lambda f: cls(f, *tags)
   

2. In my other objects, use my new cached_property.tag decorator classmethod to define tagged cached_property methods:

   @cached_property.tag("foo_group")
   def foo(self):
       return "foo"
   

3. On my object that makes use of the new decorator, write a method to invalidate all cached_property values with the named tag by walking the __dict__ of the instantiated object's class. This prevents accidental invocation of all cached_property methods:

   def invalidate(self, tag):
       for key, value in self.__class__.__dict__.items():
           if isinstance(value, cached_property) and tag in value.tags:
               self.__dict__.pop(key, None)
   

Now, to invalidate, I merely invoke myobject.invalidate("foo_group").

If you don't want to use try and except, and also write fewer lines, you can use:

if ("expensive_property" in obj.__dict__):
    del obj.expensive_property

Or:

if ("expensive_property" in obj.__dict__):
    delattr(obj, "expensive_property")

It will delete the cached property and it will be calculated again the next time it's accessed.

Update: Don't use if (hasattr(obj, "expensive_property")):! It will calculate the property if it's not cached already and will always return True!

Just del it as documentation says. It will lead to recalculation on next access.

class SomeClass(object):
    
    @cached_property
    def expensive_property(self):
         return datetime.now()

obj = SomeClass()
print obj.expensive_property
print obj.expensive_property # outputs the same value as before
del obj.expensive_property
print obj.expensive_property # outputs new value

For Python 3 it's the same use of del. Below is an example of a try/except block.

try:
    del obj.expensive_property 
except AttributeError:
    pass