How to Query the Most Liked Users in Django REST API

Discover how to efficiently fetch the top 20 users with the highest likes using Django REST Framework, enhancing your social media app's functionality.
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How to Query the Most Liked Users in Django REST API

In the modern era of social media applications, user engagement is crucial, and one of the primary indicators of engagement is the number of likes a user receives on their posts. If you're developing a social media app using Django and the Django REST Framework, you might find yourself asking: How do I fetch the top 20 users who have received the most likes?

This guide will guide you through the process of querying your Likes Model to retrieve this important data efficiently.

Understanding the Models

Before we dive into the solution, let’s take a quick look at the relevant models in your application.

Likes Model

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

The PostLike model tracks which users liked which posts.

Post Model

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

The Post model represents the individual posts made by users and includes a relationship to track likes.

User Model

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This model represents each user, their profile details, and any permissions associated with their account.

Fetching the Most Liked Users

Now, let's get into the core part of the problem: querying the PostLike model to retrieve the top 20 users who have received the most likes.

Adjusting the Post Model

Before we run our query, ensure that your Post model has the related_name attribute set. This prevents any clashes in related models:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

By setting this, you're defining that posts by a user are accessible on the User model through the author attribute.

The Query

The following query can be used in your view to get the top 20 liked users:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

How It Works

Query the User Model: We start with the User table.

Annotate Users: We use the annotate() function to add a new field, num_likes, which counts the likes for each user's posts.

author takes us to the posts made by the user.

likes follows to the PostLike model to count the likes per post.

Order and Limit: We order the result by num_likes in descending order and limit the output to the top 20 users.

Complete View Function

Here is how your complete view function might look:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Conclusion

With this, you've learned how to efficiently retrieve the most liked users in your Django REST API for your social media app. By using annotations and aggregation queries, you can enhance the functionality and engagement metrics of your platform.

Implement this feature to not only recognize your most engaged users but also to foster a supportive community around your application.