Accessing URL String from a URLField in Django

The error you're encountering occurs because you're trying to pass the URLField definition itself to the regex function, rather than the actual URL string value stored in that field.

Solution

When working with model fields in Django, you need to access the field's value through a model instance. Here's how to properly access the URL string:

If link is a model instance:

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# Assuming 'link' is your model instance and 'url' is your URLField
url_string = link.url  # Access the actual string value

# Now you can use it with regex
hurl = re.search(regex, url_string)

If link is the field definition:

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# If you're working with a model class rather than an instance
# First get the instance, then access the field
instance = YourModel.objects.get(pk=some_id)
url_string = instance.link  # Assuming 'link' is your URLField name

# Now use the string with regex
hurl = re.search(regex, url_string)

In a model method:

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class YourModel(models.Model):
    link = models.URLField()
    
    def process_url(self):
        # Access the field value directly through self
        url_string = self.link
        
        # Now you can use regex on the string
        hurl = re.search(regex, url_string)
        return hurl

Remember that Django's URLField stores the data as a string in the database, so once you access the field's value correctly, you'll get a string that can be processed with regex functions.