Django: List field in model?

You can convert it into string by using JSON and store it as string.

For example,

In [3]: json.dumps([[1, 3, 4], [4, 2, 6], [8, 12, 3], [3, 3, 9]])

Out[3]: '[[1, 3, 4], [4, 2, 6], [8, 12, 3], [3, 3, 9]]'

You can add a method into your class to convert it automatically for you.

import json


class Foobar(models.Model):
    foo = models.CharField(max_length=200)

    def set_foo(self, x):
        self.foo = json.dumps(x)

    def get_foo(self):
        return json.loads(self.foo)

If you're using Django 1.9 and postgresql, there is a new class called JSONField, you should use it instead. Here is a link to it

There is a good talk about PostgreSQL JSONs and Arrays on youtube. Watch it, it has very good information.

If you're on Django 1.10 or newer AND Postgres as your database, you can use ArrayField. It's better to use than django-taggit or other alternatives, as it's native to the Django framework. https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/ref/contrib/postgres/fields/#arrayfield

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.postgres.fields import ArrayField

class ChessBoard(models.Model):
    board = ArrayField(
        ArrayField(
            models.CharField(max_length=10, blank=True),
            size=8,
        ),
        size=8,
    )

If you're on Django 3.1 or newer they've added support for JSONField with most database backends (MariaDB 10.2.7+, MySQL 5.7.8+, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and SQLite 3.9.0+). You can use this to store your Array!

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/ref/models/fields/#jsonfield

from django.db import models

class ChessBoard(models.Model):
    list_of_pieces = models.JSONField()

If you are using PostgreSQL, you can use ArrayField with a nested ArrayField: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/contrib/postgres/fields/

This way, the data structure will be known to the underlying database. Also, the ORM brings special functionality for it.

Note that you will have to create a GIN index by yourself, though (see the above link, further down: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/contrib/postgres/fields/#indexing-arrayfield).

(Edit: updated links to newest Django LTS, this feature exists at least since 1.8.)