Django should warn when creating a model with field called "save".

[Thomas Steinacher <tom@…>]

The following model

class MyModel(models.Model):
    save = models.BooleanField(...)

causes error messages like

  File "django/db/models/query.py", line 373, in get_or_create
    obj.save(force_insert=True)

TypeError: 'bool' object is not callable

Django's ORM should give a more intuitive error message (e.g. in manage.py sql/syncdb) and not allow the user to have models with a field called "save".

[Jacob]

I'm not totally convinced that we should bother warning here -- at a certain point, we can't just put every single possible mistake into the validation warnings. We need to rely on users to do the right thing.

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

If we do this, we shouldn't allow fields to replace any methods that already exist. "save" isn't special. Tend to agree with Jacob, though: this is a standard thing throughout Python. You have to be careful not to override parent class attributes and Django shouldn't try to be a "wrapped in cotton wool" version of Python, even by replacing Python warts.

[Thomas Steinacher <tom@…>]

If we do this, we shouldn't allow fields to replace any methods that already exist.

You're right on that one. I am not sure if it is even possible to check that. I leave it up to you to decide. It just took me more time than necessary to figure out why I get strange error messages.

[Aymeric Augustin]

I'm closing this ticket for the reasons explained by Jacob and Malcolm above.

I don't believe it's worth trying to catch these errors at validation time, and I'm not even sure it's possible. How could we catch "metaclass = ...", since the Model metaclass won't even kick in?