This project is currently unmaintained

Alternatives to django-mptt include:

• django-treebeard includes a MPTT implementation (called a nested set), but the state of maintenance is unclear.
• Maybe you do not need MPTT, especially when using newer databases. See django-tree-queries for an implementation using recursive Common Table Expressions (CTE). See the announcement blog post.

django-mptt

Utilities for implementing Modified Preorder Tree Traversal with your Django Models and working with trees of Model instances.

Project home:

Documentation:

Discussion group:

What is Modified Preorder Tree Traversal?

MPTT is a technique for storing hierarchical data in a database. The aim is to make retrieval operations very efficient.

The trade-off for this efficiency is that performing inserts and moving items around the tree are more involved, as there's some extra work required to keep the tree structure in a good state at all times.

Here are a few articles about MPTT to whet your appetite and provide details about how the technique itself works:

• Trees in SQL
• Storing Hierarchical Data in a Database
• Managing Hierarchical Data in MySQL

What is django-mptt?

django-mptt is a reusable Django app that aims to make it easy for you to use MPTT with your own Django models.

It takes care of the details of managing a database table as a tree structure and provides tools for working with trees of model instances.

Requirements

• A supported version of Python:

• A supported version of Django:

Feature overview

• Simple registration of models - fields required for tree structure will be added automatically.
• The tree structure is automatically updated when you create or delete model instances, or change an instance's parent.
• Each level of the tree is automatically sorted by a field (or fields) of your choice.
• New model methods are added to each registered model for:
  • changing position in the tree
  • retrieving ancestors, siblings, descendants
  • counting descendants
  • other tree-related operations
• A TreeManager manager is added to all registered models. This provides methods to:
  • move nodes around a tree, or into a different tree
  • insert a node anywhere in a tree
  • rebuild the MPTT fields for the tree (useful when you do bulk updates outside of Django)
• Form fields for tree models.
• Utility functions for tree models.
• Template tags and filters for rendering trees.
• Admin classes for visualizing and modifying trees in Django's administration interface.