How to execute a GROUP BY ... COUNT or SUM in Django ORM?

Solution 1:

We can perform a GROUP BY ... COUNT or a GROUP BY ... SUM SQL equivalent queries on Django ORM, with the use of annotate(), values(), the django.db.models's Count and Sum methods respectfully and optionally the order_by() method:

  • GROUP BY ... COUNT:

     from django.db.models import Count
    
     result = Books.objects.values('author')
                           .order_by('author')
                           .annotate(count=Count('author'))
    

    Now result contains a dictionary with two keys: author and count:

       author    | count
     ------------|-------
      OneAuthor  |   5
     OtherAuthor |   2
        ...      |  ...
    
  • GROUP BY ... SUM:

     from django.db.models import Sum
    
      result = Books.objects.values('author')
                            .order_by('author')
                            .annotate(total_price=Sum('price'))
    

    Now result contains a dictionary with two columns: author and total_price:

       author    | total_price
     ------------|-------------
      OneAuthor  |    100.35
     OtherAuthor |     50.00
         ...     |      ...
    

UPDATE 13/04/2021

As @dgw points out in the comments, in the case that the model uses a meta option to order rows (ex. ordering), the order_by() clause is paramount for the success of the aggregation!