How to gracefully handle DoesNotExist exception when admin user is not found?

Question

I have a created_by field in my model which defaults to the admin user upon object creation. I am fetching the admin user using this piece of code,

admin_user_name = settings.ADMIN_USER_NAME
admin = User.objects.get(username=admin_user_name)

Now if I have to handle the object.DoesNotExist exception like

try:
   admin_user_name = settings.ADMIN_USER_NAME
   admin = User.objects.get(username=admin_user_name)
except User.DoesNotExist:
    # handle the exception gracefully

How do I handle the exception without throwing an error in such a case?

Update: The created_by field is made available by inheriting the following

class AbstractUserBase(models.Model):
    created_by = models.ForeignKey(User,related_name='%(class)s_createdby',on_delete=models.CASCADE)

    class Meta:
        abstract = True

Answer 1

don't use get. Use ….objects.filter() and count() the result.

An other way would be using ….objects.exists(XYZ) before getting it with get.