Add filter by attributed for custom-object-types

[ifoughal]

Plugin Version

v0.4.1 - 2025-11-10

Proposed functionality

Add filtering by object properties for custom-object-types

Use case

Currently, when creating the objects through the API/Pynetbox. There is no possible way to filter the custom-object-types instances, in order to ensure whether they exist or not. the only possible way to do so is to either get all the objects or query search.

It would be a good time saver / optimisation, if the filter includes the properties of the custom-object-types object. so that we would be allowed to filter by name for example.

External dependencies

No response

[jeremystretch]

Add filtering by object properties for custom-object-types

@ifoughal could you please elaborate on the specific change(s) you're proposing?

[ifoughal]

@jeremystretch Please do consider the following example:

1. I create a custom object type named storage_device
2. Create 4 custom object fields for my storage_device object:
   • attached_to (type: object, app_label=DCIM, model: device)
   • capacity (type: decimal)
   • persistent_id (type: text)
   • variant (type: object, app_label:DCIM, model: devicetype)
3. using pynetbox:
   • creating / deleting works.
   • updating: not supported
   • reading:
     • get(**filter): not supported
     • all(): supported, then additional filtering logic required

update example:

storage_device = nb.plugins.custom_objects.custom_object_types.get(name="storage_device")

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/ifoughali/netbox-import/populate_netbox.py", line 44, in <module>
    netbox = NetboxHandler()
  File "/home/ifoughali/netbox-import/utils/netbox.py", line 74, in __init__
    self.init_session()
  File "/home/ifoughali/netbox-import/utils/netbox.py", line 94, in init_session
    storage_device = self.netbox.plugins.custom_objects.custom_object_types.get(name="storage_device")
  File "/home/ifoughali/netbox-import/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pynetbox/core/endpoint.py", line 234, in get
    raise ValueError(
ValueError: get() returned more than one result. Check that the kwarg(s) passed are valid for this endpoint or use filter() or all() instead.

This is because .get() returns more than 1 element, through the GUI we could also notice that the custom_object_types filter has the default filter attributes only.

This broken filter logic also applies to the custom object type instances, as well as the custom object type fields.

but in the case of custom object type instances, the filtering is possible with text fields. but text fields only:
example:

storage_devices = self.netbox.plugins.custom_objects.storage_devices.get(persistent_id="/dev/disk/by-id/wwn-123456")
> Storage Device 22

Curentlly the only way to circumvent this it to get all than filter manually:

storage_devices = nb.plugins.custom_objects.custom_object_types.all()

# loop through storage_devices & filter with if conditions 

[ifoughal]

After reviewing this plugin code, I came to the realization that currently only text & integer types return a fitler form on the field_types.py

Other types need to be implemented with their forms.

here is an example, with decimal values:
this was the DecimalFieldType prior to implementing the missing filter method:

class DecimalFieldType(FieldType):
    def get_model_field(self, field, **kwargs):
        field_kwargs = self._safe_kwargs(**kwargs)
        field_kwargs.update({"default": field.default, "unique": field.unique})
        return models.DecimalField(
            null=True,
            blank=True,
            max_digits=8,
            decimal_places=2,
            **field_kwargs
        )

    def get_form_field(self, field, **kwargs):
        input("in decimal")
        return forms.DecimalField(
            required=field.required,
            initial=field.default,
            max_digits=12,
            decimal_places=4,
            min_value=field.validation_minimum,
            max_value=field.validation_maximum,
        )

Post filter form implementation:

class DecimalFieldType(FieldType):
    def get_model_field(self, field, **kwargs):
        field_kwargs = self._safe_kwargs(**kwargs)
        field_kwargs.update({"default": field.default, "unique": field.unique})
        return models.DecimalField(
            null=True,
            blank=True,
            max_digits=8,
            decimal_places=2,
            **field_kwargs
        )

    def get_form_field(self, field, **kwargs):
        input("in decimal")
        return forms.DecimalField(
            required=field.required,
            initial=field.default,
            max_digits=12,
            decimal_places=4,
            min_value=field.validation_minimum,
            max_value=field.validation_maximum,
        )

    def get_filterform_field(self, field, **kwargs):
        return forms.DecimalField(
            label=field,
            required=False,
            max_digits=12,
            decimal_places=4,
            min_value=field.validation_minimum,
            max_value=field.validation_maximum,
        )

Please do note that not all supported objects are mentioned, and those featured are missing the filterform method.