A mixin to add support to related attributes like 'book_author' in django ModelAdmin list_display field

django_admin_dynamic_lookup_mixin.py

class DynamicLookupMixin(object):
    '''
    A mixin to add support to related attributes like
    'book_author' in django ModelAdmin list_display field
    creating callables on the fly
    '''

    def __getattr__(self, attr):
        if ('__' in attr
            and not attr.startswith('_')
            and not attr.endswith('_boolean')
            and not attr.endswith('_short_description')):

            def dyn_lookup(instance):
                # traverse all __ lookups
                return reduce(lambda parent, child: getattr(parent, child),
                              attr.split('__'),
                              instance)

            # get admin_order_field, boolean and short_description
            dyn_lookup.admin_order_field = attr
            dyn_lookup.boolean = getattr(self, '{}_boolean'.format(attr), False)
            dyn_lookup.short_description = getattr(
                self, '{}_short_description'.format(attr),
                attr.replace('_', ' ').capitalize())

            return dyn_lookup

        # not dynamic lookup, default behaviour
        return self.__getattribute__(attr)


# use examples    

@admin.register(models.Person)
class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin, DynamicLookupMixin):
    list_display = ['book__author', 'book__publisher__name',
                    'book__publisher__country']

    # custom short description
    book__publisher__country_short_description = 'Publisher Country'


@admin.register(models.Product)
class ProductAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin, DynamicLookupMixin):
    list_display = ('name', 'category__is_new')

    # to show as boolean field
    category__is_new_boolean = True