Admin ordering works incorrectly if ModelAdmin.ordering has several fields, and one of them is an another Model field

[Ilya Semenov]

If I create two dependent models, and ask the admin interface to order instances of the dependent Model based on the field of the base Model AND on its own field, the secondary ordering is lost. See minimalistic example:

class Foo(models.Model):
        is_active = models.BooleanField(default=True)

class Bar(models.Model):
        foo = models.OneToOneField(Foo, primary_key=True)
        name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
        
        def __unicode__(self):
                return "%s, %s" % (self.name, "active" if self.foo.is_active else "inactive")

# ...

class BarAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
        list_display = ('name',)
        ordering = ('-foo__is_active', 'name')

admin.site.register(Bar, BarAdmin)

insert into app_foo set is_active=1;
insert into app_foo set is_active=1;
insert into app_foo set is_active=1;
insert into app_bar values (1,'aaaa');
insert into app_bar values (1,'ccc');
insert into app_bar values (1,'bbb');

If we run a manual query, it works as expected:

>>> Bar.objects.order_by('-foo__is_active', 'name')
[<Bar: aaaa, active>, <Bar: bbb, active>, <Bar: ccc, active>]

However, the admin page at ​http://my.site/admin/app/bar/ would display:

aaa
ccc
bbb

which means the ordering was lost.

If both fields are in the same model, everything works fine.

Django version is [8696].

[Karen Tracey]

I think it's coincidence that the ordering works as you want when the fields are in the same model, the Admin only uses one field for ordering. See ​http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/admin/#ordering and #7942. Closing as invalid since the docs state this doesn't work.

[Ilya Semenov]

Yeah, sorry, overlooked that in the documenation.

Then, however, I don't understand what's the point to have ModelAdmin.ordering as a tuple, if only the first element is always used?

[Karen Tracey]

Replying to semenov:

Then, however, I don't understand what's the point to have ModelAdmin.ordering as a tuple, if only the first element is always used?

Consistency with most of the other ModelAdmin options? Leaving the door open to one day implement multi-field ordering in Admin? I don't really know.

[Jacob]

Consistancy, sure, but also because although the current UI doesn't support multiple ordering, a future UI might. Worth leaving the door open.