django abstract models versus regular inheritance

I actually want to know the difference between a model class that inherits from a django abstract class (Meta: abstract = True) and a plain Python class that inherits from say, 'object' (and not models.Model).

Django will only generate tables for subclasses of models.Model, so the former...

class User(models.Model):
   first_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)

   def get_username(self):
       return self.username

   class Meta:
       abstract = True

class Employee(User):
   title = models.CharField(max_length=255)

...will cause a single table to be generated, along the lines of...

CREATE TABLE myapp_employee
(
    id         INT          NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    first_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    title      VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

...whereas the latter...

class User(object):
   first_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)

   def get_username(self):
       return self.username

class Employee(User):
   title = models.CharField(max_length=255)

...won't cause any tables to be generated.

You could use multiple inheritance to do something like this...

class User(object):
   first_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)

   def get_username(self):
       return self.username

class Employee(User, models.Model):
   title = models.CharField(max_length=255)

...which would create a table, but it will ignore the fields defined in the User class, so you'll end up with a table like this...

CREATE TABLE myapp_employee
(
    id         INT          NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    title      VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

An abstract model creates a table with the entire set of columns for each subchild, whereas using "plain" Python inheritance creates a set of linked tables (aka "multi-table inheritance"). Consider the case in which you have two models:

class Vehicle(models.Model):
  num_wheels = models.PositiveIntegerField()


class Car(Vehicle):
  make = models.CharField(…)
  year = models.PositiveIntegerField()

If Vehicle is an abstract model, you'll have a single table:

app_car:
| id | num_wheels | make | year

However, if you use plain Python inheritance, you'll have two tables:

app_vehicle:
| id | num_wheels

app_car:
| id | vehicle_id | make | model

Where vehicle_id is a link to a row in app_vehicle that would also have the number of wheels for the car.

Now, Django will put this together nicely in object form so you can access num_wheels as an attribute on Car, but the underlying representation in the database will be different.

Update

To address your updated question, the difference between inheriting from a Django abstract class and inheriting from Python's object is that the former is treated as a database object (so tables for it are synced to the database) and it has the behavior of a Model. Inheriting from a plain Python object gives the class (and its subclasses) none of those qualities.

The main difference is how the databases tables for the models are created. If you use inheritance without abstract = True Django will create a separate table for both the parent and the child model which hold the fields defined in each model.

If you use abstract = True for the base class Django will only create a table for the classes that inherit from the base class - no matter if the fields are defined in the base class or the inheriting class.

Pros and cons depend on the architecture of your application. Given the following example models:

class Publishable(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(...)
    date = models.DateField(....)

    class Meta:
        # abstract = True

class BlogEntry(Publishable):
    text = models.TextField()


class Image(Publishable):
    image = models.ImageField(...)

If the Publishable class is not abstract Django will create a table for publishables with the columns title and date and separate tables for BlogEntry and Image. The advantage of this solution would be that you are able to query across all publishables for fields defined in the base model, no matter if they are blog entries or images. But therefore Django will have to do joins if you e.g. do queries for images... If making Publishable abstract = True Django will not create a table for Publishable, but only for blog entries and images, containing all fields (also the inherited ones). This would be handy because no joins would be needed to an operation such as get.

Also see Django's documentation on model inheritance.

The main difference is when you inherit the User class. One version will behave like a simple class, and the other will behave like a Django modeel.

If you inherit the base "object" version, your Employee class will just be a standard class, and first_name won't become part of a database table. You can't create a form or use any other Django features with it.

If you inherit the models.Model version, your Employee class will have all the methods of a Django Model, and it will inherit the first_name field as a database field that can be used in a form.

According to the documentation, an Abstract Model "provides a way to factor out common information at the Python level, whilst still only creating one database table per child model at the database level."