Django querysets: Excluding NULL values across multiple joins - mysql

Question

I'm trying to avoid using extra() here, but haven't found a way to get the results I want using Django's other queryset methods.
My models relationships are as follows:
Model: Enrollment
FK to Course
FK to User
FK to Mentor (can be NULL)
Model: Course
FK to CourseType
In a single query: given a User, I'm trying to get all of the CourseTypes they have access to. A User has access to a CourseType if they have an Enrollment with both a Course of that CourseType AND an existing Mentor.
This user has 2 Enrollments: one in a Course for CourseType ID 6, and the other for a Course for CourseType ID 7, but her enrollment for CourseType ID 7 does not have a mentor, so she does not have access to CourseType ID 7.
user = User.objects.get(pk=123)
This works fine: Get all of the CourseTypes that the user has enrollments for, but don't (yet) query for the mentor requirement:
In [28]: CourseType.objects.filter(course__enrollment__user=user).values('pk')
Out[28]: [{'pk': 6L}, {'pk': 7L}]
This does not give me the result I want: Excluding enrollments with NULL mentor values. I want it to return only ID 6 since that is the only enrollment with a mentor, but it returns an empty queryset:
In [29]: CourseType.objects.filter(course__enrollment__user=user).exclude(course__enrollment__mentor=None).values('pk')
Out[29]: []
Here's the generated SQL for the last queryset that isn't returning what I want it to:
SELECT `courses_coursetype`.`id` FROM `courses_coursetype` INNER JOIN `courses_course` ON ( `courses_coursetype`.`id` = `courses_course`.`course_type_id` ) INNER JOIN `store_enrollment` ON ( `courses_course`.`id` = `store_enrollment`.`course_id` ) WHERE (`store_enrollment`.`user_id` = 3877 AND NOT (`courses_coursetype`.`id` IN (SELECT U0.`id` AS `id` FROM `courses_coursetype` U0 LEFT OUTER JOIN `courses_course` U1 ON ( U0.`id` = U1.`course_type_id` ) LEFT OUTER JOIN `store_enrollment` U2 ON ( U1.`id` = U2.`course_id` ) WHERE U2.`mentor_id` IS NULL)))
The problem, it seems, is that in implementing the exclude(), Django is creating a subquery which is excluding more rows than I want excluded.
To get the desired results, I had to use extra() to explicitly exclude NULL Mentor values in the WHERE clause:
In [36]: CourseType.objects.filter(course__enrollment__user=user).extra(where=['store_enrollment.mentor_id IS NOT NULL']).values('pk')
Out[36]: [{'pk': 6L}]
Is there a way to get this result without using extra()? If not, should I file a ticket with Django per the docs? I looked at the existing tickets and searched for this issue but unfortunately came up short.
I'm using Django 1.7.10 with MySQL.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Try using isnull.
CourseType.objects.filter(
course__enrollment__user=user,
course__enrollment__mentor__isnull=False,
).values('pk')

Answer 2

Instead of exclude() you can create complex queries using Q(), or in your case ~Q():
filter_q = Q(course__enrollment__user=user) | ~Q(course__enrollment__mentor=None)
CourseType.objects.filter(filter_q).values('pk')
This might lead to a different SQL statement.
See docs:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/topics/db/queries/#complex-lookups-with-q-objects