[FIXED] How to add a calculated field to a Django model

Issue

I have a simple Employee model that includes firstname, lastname and middlename fields.

On the admin side and likely elsewhere, I would like to display that as:

lastname, firstname middlename

To me the logical place to do this is in the model by creating a calculated field as such:

from django.db import models
from django.contrib import admin

class Employee(models.Model):
    lastname = models.CharField("Last", max_length=64)
    firstname = models.CharField("First", max_length=64)
    middlename = models.CharField("Middle", max_length=64)
    clocknumber = models.CharField(max_length=16)
    name = ''.join(
        [lastname.value_to_string(),
        ',',
         firstname.value_to_string(),
        ' ',
         middlename.value_to_string()])

    class Meta:
        ordering = ['lastname','firstname', 'middlename']

class EmployeeAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('clocknumber','name')
    fieldsets = [("Name", {"fields":(("lastname", "firstname", "middlename"), "clocknumber")}),
        ]

admin.site.register(Employee, EmployeeAdmin)

Ultimately what I think I need is to get the value of the name fields as strings. The error I am getting is value_to_string() takes exactly 2 arguments (1 given). Value to string wants self, obj. I am not sure what obj means.

There must be an easy way to do this, I am sure I am not the first to want to do this.

Edit: Below is my code modified to Daniel's answer. The error I get is:

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: 
    EmployeeAdmin.list_display[1], 'name' is not a callable or an 
    attribute of 'EmployeeAdmin' of found in the model 'Employee'.

from django.db import models
from django.contrib import admin

class Employee(models.Model):
    lastname = models.CharField("Last", max_length=64)
    firstname = models.CharField("First", max_length=64)
    middlename = models.CharField("Middle", max_length=64)
    clocknumber = models.CharField(max_length=16)

    @property
    def name(self):
        return ''.join(
            [self.lastname,' ,', self.firstname, ' ', self.middlename])

    class Meta:
        ordering = ['lastname','firstname', 'middlename']

class EmployeeAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('clocknumber','name')
    fieldsets = [("Name", {"fields":(("lastname", "firstname", "middlename"), "clocknumber")}),
]

admin.site.register(Employee, EmployeeAdmin)

Solution

Ok... Daniel Roseman's answer seemed like it should have worked. As is always the case, you find what you're looking for after you post the question.

From the Django 1.5 docs I found this example that worked right out of the box. Thanks to all for your help.

Here is the code that worked:

from django.db import models
from django.contrib import admin

class Employee(models.Model):
    lastname = models.CharField("Last", max_length=64)
    firstname = models.CharField("First", max_length=64)
    middlename = models.CharField("Middle", max_length=64)
    clocknumber = models.CharField(max_length=16)

    def _get_full_name(self):
        "Returns the person's full name."
        return '%s, %s %s' % (self.lastname, self.firstname, self.middlename)
    full_name = property(_get_full_name)


    class Meta:
        ordering = ['lastname','firstname', 'middlename']

class EmployeeAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('clocknumber','full_name')
    fieldsets = [("Name", {"fields":(("lastname", "firstname", "middlename"), "clocknumber")}),
]

admin.site.register(Employee, EmployeeAdmin)

Answered By - cstrutton