Django datatables view Related Field got invalid lookup: istartswith

Question

I am trying to render a datatable using django datatables view, but it always gives this error when I try to search, django.core.exceptions.FieldError: Related Field got invalid lookup: istartswith. The model I am using has a ForeignKey to another model. I have tried all the solutions I have found. They dont work!!

I have tried https://datatables.net/forums/discussion/55916/searching-on-columns-with-data-null ,

https://bitbucket.org/pigletto/django-datatables-view/issues/5/order_columns-doesnt-work-with-foreign and

https://github.com/izimobil/django-rest-framework-datatables/issues/58

javascript

var customerTable = $(DOMstrings.customerTable ).DataTable({        
      "processing": true,        
      "searching": true,
      'pageLength': 30,
      //"lengthMenu": [ 50, 100, 150, 200 ],
      //"colReorder": true,
      "scrollY": 500,
      //"scrollX": 1500,
      //"deferRender": true,
      "responsive": true, 
      "ordering": true, 
      "paging": true,   
      "lengthChange": true,  

      "ajax": {
          "url": customerListURL,                
      },
      "serverSide": true,

      "columns": [        
          { "fields": "id" },                   
          { "fields": "customer.first_name"},
          { "fields": "amount" },
          { "fields": "date_time" },                  
          //{ "fields": "picture" },                               
          //{ "searchable": "false" },                                   
      ],
      dom: 'Bfrtip',
      buttons: [
          'colvis',            
          'pageLength',
      ],        
  });   

views

class CustomerListJsonView(LoginRequiredMixin, BaseDatatableView):
    """This is the view used by Datatables.net to render the Datatable"""
    # The model we're going to show
    model = Customer

    columns = ['id', 'customer', 'amount', 'date_time']   

    # This defines columns that will be used in sorting
    order_columns = ['id', 'customer', 'amount', 'date_time']
    max_display_length = 100
    
    def render_column(self, row, column):
        # We want to render phone number as a custom column        
        if column == 'date_time':                                    
            return row.date_time.strftime('%b %d %Y %I:%M %p') 
        else:            
            return super(CustomerListJsonView, self).render_column(row, column)  

Answer 1

well, i hope my answer will help others since i guess it's too late for this question. I was facing the same problem till i found that i should add in the template data-name attribute refering to the foreign key as follows :

data-name="ForeignKeyModel.ForeignKeyName" then the datatables will send the search statement (icontains or regex) in an acceptable form accepted by django for such fileds!

Check the documentation here : https://django-rest-framework-datatables.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorial.html#a-more-complex-and-detailed-example