difference between values() and only()

Question

what's the difference between using: ``` Blabla.objects.values('field1', 'field2', 'field3') ``` and ``` Blabla.objects.only('field1', 'field2', 'field3') ```

Accepted Answer

Assuming `Blabla` has the fields in your question, as well as `field4`,

```
Blabla.objects.only('field1', 'field2', 'field3')[0].field4
```

will return the value of that object's `field4` (with a new database query to retrieve that info), whereas

```
Blabla.objects.values('field1', 'field2', 'field3')[0].field4
```

will give

```
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'field4'
```

This is because `.values()` returns a `QuerySet` that returns dictionaries, which is essentially a list of dicts, rather than model instances (`Blabla`).

difference between values() and only()

Solution

Problem