Django select_related on chained foreign keys

As to question B:

If I understand your question correctly, you need to specify the fields only once, no need for duplication.

Note: I display the final version of your models here again, because otherwise I get confused.

class RecordLabel(models.Model):    title = models.CharField(...)class Genre(models.Model):    genre_name = models.CharField(...)class Band(models.Model):    band_name = models.CharField(...)    music_genre = models.ForeignKey(Genre, ...)class Artist(models.Model):    record_label = models.ForeignKey(RecordLabel, ...)    belongs_to_band = models.ForeignKey(Band, ...)class Producer(models.Model):    customer = models.ForeignKey(Artist, ...)

To select all related models (make one big join SQL query):

qs = Producer.objects.filter(...).select_related(    'customer__record_label',    'customer__belongs_to_band__music_genre')

The first part (customer) pre-fetches the related artist and the related record label (__record_label); the second part does not need to fetch the artist because it already is there, but it goes on to prefetch the related band (__belongs_to_band) and then also the related genre (__music_genre). Now you have a SQL query that accesses all 5 tables (models).

Hint: you can use qs.query to see a basic idea of the SQL statement that your query will generate; that should give you an idea of the joins it makes.

If you're having problems with the query, then you should add more information on what exactly is happening and what you are expecting.

For question A:pass the arguments as strings

qs = Producer.objects.filter(...).select_related(    'customer__record_label', 'customer__belongs_to_band')

EDIT: seems like the missing quotes were just a typo of the asker, not the real question.