[Python-projects] Using pyLint with Django (or other 3rd party libraries)

[Rogan Creswick]

First off, I am a "seasoned" developer, but I am new to python,
pylint, and django.

I would very much like to integrate pylint into the build process for
my python projects, but I have run into one show-stopper:  One of the
error types that I find extremely useful--:E1101: *%s %r has no %r
member*--constantly reports errors when using common django fields,
for example:

E1101:125:get_user_tags: Class 'Tag' has no 'objects' member

which is caused by this code:

def get_user_tags(username):
   """
   Gets all the tags that username has used.

   Returns a query set.
   """
   return Tag.objects.filter(  ## This line triggers the error.
       tagownership__users__username__exact=username).distinct()

# Here is the Tag class, models.Model is provided by Django:
class Tag(models.Model):
   """
   Model for user-defined strings that help categorize Events on
   on a per-user basis.
   """
   name = models.CharField(max_length=500, null=False, unique=True)

   def __unicode__(self):
       return self.name

I believe this is caused because pyLint is unable to find, and/or
incorporate information about the superclasses used by the model
classes in my django projects. (Tag, in this case).  I've looked over
the tutorial, user manual, and help output for pylint, and I haven't
found any way to direct pylint at the django source so that it can
identify the fields that are inherited from the superclass objects.
(The portions of the user manual that look like they would cover this
have not yet been written.)

Could someone please let me know what, if anything, I can do to get
around this?  I do not consider disabling E1101 to be an option -- it
checks for precisely the type of error I'm concerned about, and
indeed, if I use an object like a model class when it is *not* a model
class, that should be caught!

Thank you,
Rogan Creswick