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An elegant solution for keeping a relational log of chronological events in a Django application.

Project description

# django-papertrail

An elegant solution for keeping a relational log of chronological events in a Django application.

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## Installation

To install `django-papertrail`:
```
$ pip install django-papertrail
```

To enable `django-papertrail` in your project you need to add it to `INSTALLED_APPS` in your projects
`settings.py` file:
```python
INSTALLED_APPS = (
...
'papertrail',
...
)
```


After that, you should migrate:
```
$ python manage.py migrate
```

## Using it

```python
import papertrail

###########################################################################
# Creating entries
###########################################################################

# Basic usage. Timestamp defaults to now
papertrail.log('cache-flushed', 'Cache was flushed!')

# Optional data
papertrail.log(
'periodic-cleanup-ran',
'Periodic cleanup task executed.',
data={
'success': True,
'cleaned_objects': 100,
}
)

# Optional targets
papertrail.log(
'user-logged-in',
u'{} logged in'.format(request.user.get_full_name()),
targets={
'user': request.user,
}
)

# Optional timestamp
papertrail.log(
'user-joined',
'User joined site',
targets={
'user': request.user,
},
timestamp=request.user.date_joined,
)

# Multiple targets
user1 = User.objects.get(...)
user2 = User.objects.get(...)
papertrail.log(
'user-followed',
'User followed another user',
targets={
'follower': user1,
'following': user2,
},
)

###########################################################################
# Querying the papertrail
###########################################################################

# Gettying all papertrail entries that points to user1, without taking
# into account the target relationship name
qs = papertrail.related_to(user)
entry = qs.first()
print '[{}] {} ({}) - {}'.format(
entry.timestamp, entry.type, entry.message, entry.data
)

# Get all entry that points to both users
# (Will only return entries that have both user1 and user2 in their
# targets)
qs = papertrail.related_to(user1, user2)

# Query specific relationships, such as user1 following user2
qs = papertrail.related_to(follower=user1, following=user2)

# Filtering entry by a specific type (or any Django ORM filter)
qs = papertrail.filter(type='user-followed')

# And chaining
qs = papertrail.filter(type='user-followed').related_to(follower=user1)

# Get all the users that have followed a specific user (user1). This might
# look a bit confusing at first, but can be very useful.
# The objects_represented filter allows filtering a given queryset to contain
# only elements that have a specific papertrail entry pointing at them.
all_users = get_user_model().objects.all()
users_who_followed_user1 = (papertrail
# Narrow down to only user-followed entries that followed user1
.filter(type='user-followed')
.related_to(following=user1)
# Return a User queryset that only has the users for which we have a
# user-followed entry that has a followed target pointing at them
.objects_represented(all_users, 'followed')
)

# objects_not_represented does the same, but returns a queryset that
# excludes any object that has a papertrail entry pointing at it:
# Get all users who never logged in
users_who_never_logged_in = (papertrail
.filter(type='user-logged-in')
.objects_not_represented(all_users, 'user')
)
```

## Admin integration

`django-papertrail` provides a Django admin integration to both view entries
(simple Django admin Entry list, usually available under /admin/papertrail/entry/)
as well as a more advanced intergration for objects you want to keep track of.

The advanced integration provides two useful functionalities:

1) Change tracking - whenever an object for which the integration is enabled is
added/edited/deleted, a papertrail entry will be created
2) A convenient link to view all papertrail entries pointing to the object
being viewed as well as an integrated papertrail viewer:

![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FundersClub/django-papertrail/master/docs/scrshots/admin-view-link.png)
![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FundersClub/django-papertrail/master/docs/scrshots/admin-viewer.png)

To enable the integration, your `ModelAdmin` class needs to inherit from `AdminEventLoggerMixin`:

```python
from papertrail.admin import AdminEventLoggerMixin

class MyObjectAdmin(AdminEventLoggerMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
pass

# The admin papertrail viewer can have filters:
papertrail_type_filters = {
'Login events': (
'user-logged-in',
'user-logged-out',
),
'Social events': (
'user-followed',
'user-unfollowed',
),
}
```


A viewer with filters would look like this:

![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FundersClub/django-papertrail/master/docs/scrshots/admin-viewer-filter.png)


Maintained by [Eran Rundstein @eranrund](https://www.github.com/eranrund/)

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