id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
23662	QuerySet __nonzero__, __len__ cause queryset evaluation	Alexey Smishlayev	nobody	"Current implementation:
https://github.com/django/django/blob/master/django/db/models/query.py

{{{
class QuerySet(object):
    ...
    def __nonzero__(self):
        self._fetch_all()
        return bool(self._result_cache)
    ...
    def __len__(self):
        self._fetch_all()
        return len(self._result_cache)
}}}

These methods call self._fetch_all(), thus evaluating the queryset. Although, this behaviour is documented (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/models/querysets/#when-querysets-are-evaluated), it is not obvious.

It seems logical to evaluate queryset, when casting it to a list() or iterating over it, but these particular cases have nothing to do with the queryset contents. There exist specific lazy methods (QuerySet.exists() and QuerySet.count() respectively) which, IMHO, should be used for the magic method implementation.

If I already have fetched the results of a queryset, I'm okay to call __len__() on them, but if they haven't been retrieved yet, I'd rather use SQL COUNT() instead. That is exactly, what QuerySet.count() does. The same goes for the __nonzero__() and exists()."	Cleanup/optimization	new	Database layer (models, ORM)	1.7	Normal				Unreviewed	1	0	0	0	0	1