"Changed by" displays None when change occurs outside of admin

[rlander]

When a model is changed within django's admin app, the "Change history" tab displays which user made the change (under Changed by).

However, when the same change occurs outside the admin app, "None" is shown.

Is this the expected behaviour? If so, how can I log the user that made the change?

Thanks!

[treyhunner]

@rlander django-simple-history checks for a _history_user attribute on save.

I'm working on improving the documentation for djnago-simple-history in the sphinx-docs branch. Here's the documentation so far for _history_user

[rlander]

Awesome! Thanks @treyhunner for this great library!

[rlander]

@treyhunner after adding _history_user property to my model, I get a trace "AttributeError: can't set attribute" when saving an object inside the admin app (everything's ok outside).

Here's the full trace:
http://dpaste.com/1149337/

I haven't had the chance to dig into the code, but it seems that I'm missing a setter function, correct?

[treyhunner]

Yes you need a setter attribute due to this line: https://github.com/treyhunner/django-simple-history/blob/master/simple_history/admin.py#L137

I wasn't aware of this behavior so it's not documented currently and there aren't tests demonstrating it.

In case you haven't used property setters before, here's an example: https://plus.google.com/116969159384245484847/posts/WJXWSxKKvKS

If you have an idea for a better implementation that doesn't require a setter feel free to make a pull request or a suggestion here.

[rlander]

Ok, here's my quick fix:

@_history_user.setter
def _history_user(self, value):
    self.__history_user = value

Tomorrow I'll take a look at the code and see if I can come up with a better solution.

[treyhunner]

Now that the documentation is merged, it might be a good idea to add a note in the "Integrating with Django Admin" section that links to the "Recording Which User Changed a Model" section.