Import csv data into database in Django Admin

Question

I've tried to import a csv file into a database by tweaking the modelform inside the admin doing this:

models.py:

class Data(models.Model):
    place = models.ForeignKey(Places)
    time = models.DateTimeField()
    data_1 = models.DecimalField(max_digits=3, decimal_places=1)
    data_2 = models.DecimalField(max_digits=3, decimal_places=1)
    data_3 = models.DecimalField(max_digits=4, decimal_places=1)

Forms.py:

import csv
class DataImport(ModelForm):
    file_to_import = forms.FileField()

    class Meta:
        model = Data
        fields = ("file_to_import", "place")

    def save(self, commit=False, *args, **kwargs):
        form_input = DataImport()
        self.place = self.cleaned_data['place']
        file_csv = request.FILES['file_to_import']
        datafile = open(file_csv, 'rb')
        records = csv.reader(datafile)
        for line in records:
            self.time = line[1]
            self.data_1 = line[2]
            self.data_2 = line[3]
            self.data_3 = line[4]
            form_input.save()
        datafile.close()

Admin.py:

class DataAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ("place", "time")
    form = DataImport

admin.site.register(Data, DataAdmin)

But i'm stuck trying to import the file i put in "file_to_import" field. Getting AttributeError in forms.py : 'function' object has no attribute 'FILES'.

What i'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

In the save() method, you don't have any access to the request object - you can see that it's not passed in. Normally you would expect to have a NameError there, but I suspect that you've got a function elsewhere in the file called request().

At the point of saving, all the relevant data should be in cleaned_data: so you should be able to do

file_csv = self.cleaned_data['file_to_import']

At that point you'll have another problem, which is when you get to open - you can't do that, as file_to_import is not a file on the server filesystem, it's an in-memory file that has been streamed from the client. You should be able to pass file_csv directly to csv.reader.