This module has a model manager with an update_returning method that returns an iterator over the changed rows of a sql update. It only works for Postgresql as this offers a RETURNING clause in an UPDATE query. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/sql-update.html
You can use the values, values_list, only and defer methods ahead of the update_returning call to set the type of returned rows.
Basic usage:
from udpate_returning import UpdateReturningManager class AModel(models.Model): name = models.CharField(blank=True, max_length=100) flag = models.NullBooleanField(default=True) objects = UpdateReturningManager() # updates according to the filter and update parameters and returns the changed objects. updated = AModel.objects.filter(flag__isnull=True).update_returning(flag=False) # updates according to the filter and update parameters and returns the ids of the changed objects. updated = AModel.object.filter(flag__isnull=True).values_list('id',flat=True).update_returning(flag=False)