Installation and configuration
import-export is available on the Python Package Index (PyPI), so it
can be installed with standard Python tools like pip or easy_install:
pip install django-import-export
This will automatically install the default formats supported by tablib.
If you need additional formats you should install the extra dependencies as required
appropriate tablib dependencies (e.g. pip install django-import-export[xlsx]).
To install all available formats, use pip install django-import-export[all].
For all formats, see the tablib documentation.
Alternatively, you can install the git repository directly to obtain the development version:
pip install -e git+https://github.com/django-import-export/django-import-export.git#egg=django-import-export
Now, you’re good to go, unless you want to use import-export from the
admin as well. In this case, you need to add it to your INSTALLED_APPS and
let Django collect its static files.
# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = (
...
'import_export',
)
$ python manage.py collectstatic
All prerequisites are set up! See Getting started to learn how to use import-export in your project.
Settings
You can configure the following in your settings file:
IMPORT_EXPORT_USE_TRANSACTIONS
Controls if resource importing should use database transactions. Defaults to
True. Using transactions makes imports safer as a failure during import
won’t import only part of the data set.
Can be overridden on a Resource class by setting the
use_transactions class attribute.
IMPORT_EXPORT_SKIP_ADMIN_LOG
If set to True, skips the creation of admin log entries when importing via the
Admin UI.
Defaults to False. This can speed up importing large data sets, at the cost
of losing an audit trail.
Can be overridden on a ModelAdmin class inheriting from ImportMixin by
setting the skip_admin_log class attribute.
IMPORT_EXPORT_TMP_STORAGE_CLASS
A string path to the preferred temporary storage module.
Controls which storage class to use for storing the temporary uploaded file
during imports. Defaults to import_export.tmp_storages.TempFolderStorage.
Can be overridden on a ModelAdmin class inheriting from ImportMixin by
setting the tmp_storage_class class attribute.
IMPORT_EXPORT_DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE
A string path to a customized storage implementation.
This setting is deprecated and only applies if using Django with a version less than 4.2, and will be removed in a future release.
IMPORT_EXPORT_IMPORT_PERMISSION_CODE
If set, lists the permission code that is required for users to perform the
‘import’ action. Defaults to None, which means all users can perform
imports.
Django’s built-in permissions have the codes add, change, delete,
and view. You can also add your own permissions. For example, if you set this
value to ‘import’, then you can define an explicit permission for import in the example
app with:
from core.models import Book
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
content_type = ContentType.objects.get_for_model(Book)
permission = Permission.objects.create(
codename="import_book",
name="Can import book",
content_type=content_type,
)
Now only users who are assigned ‘import_book’ permission will be able to perform imports. For more information refer to the Django auth documentation.
IMPORT_EXPORT_EXPORT_PERMISSION_CODE
Defines the same behaviour as IMPORT_EXPORT_IMPORT_PERMISSION_CODE, but for export.
IMPORT_EXPORT_CHUNK_SIZE
An integer that defines the size of chunks when iterating a QuerySet for data
exports. Defaults to 100. You may be able to save memory usage by
decreasing it, or speed up exports by increasing it.
Can be overridden on a Resource class by setting the chunk_size class
attribute.
IMPORT_EXPORT_SKIP_ADMIN_CONFIRM
If True, no import confirmation page will be presented to the user in the Admin UI.
The file will be imported in a single step.
By default, the import will occur in a transaction. If the import causes any runtime errors (including validation errors), then the errors are presented to the user and then entire transaction is rolled back.
Note that if you disable transaction support via configuration (or if your database does not support transactions), then validation errors will still be presented to the user but valid rows will have imported.
This flag can be enabled for the model admin using the skip_import_confirm
flag.
IMPORT_EXPORT_SKIP_ADMIN_EXPORT_UI
A boolean value which will skip the export form in the Admin UI, when the export is initiated from the change list page. The file will be exported in a single step.
If enabled:
the first element in the
resource_classeslist will be used.the first element in the EXPORT_FORMATS list will be used.
This flag can be enabled for the model admin using the skip_export_form
flag.
IMPORT_EXPORT_SKIP_ADMIN_ACTION_EXPORT_UI
A boolean value which will skip the export form in the Admin UI, but only when the export is requested from an Admin UI action, or from the ‘Export’ button on the change form.
IMPORT_EXPORT_ESCAPE_FORMULAE_ON_EXPORT
If set to True, strings will be sanitized by removing any leading ‘=’ character. This is to prevent execution of
Excel formulae. By default this is False.
IMPORT_EXPORT_ESCAPE_ILLEGAL_CHARS_ON_EXPORT
If an export to XLSX format generates
IllegalCharacterError, then
if this flag is True strings will be sanitized by removing any invalid Excel characters,
replacing them with the unicode replacement character.
By default this is False, meaning that IllegalCharacterError is caught and re-raised as ValueError.
IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS
A list that defines which file formats will be allowed during imports and exports. Defaults
to import_export.formats.base_formats.DEFAULT_FORMATS.
The values must be those provided in import_export.formats.base_formats e.g
# settings.py
from import_export.formats.base_formats import XLSX
IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS = [XLSX]
This can be set for a specific model admin by declaring the formats attribute.
IMPORT_FORMATS
A list that defines which file formats will be allowed during imports. Defaults
to IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS.
The values must be those provided in import_export.formats.base_formats e.g
# settings.py
from import_export.formats.base_formats import CSV, XLSX
IMPORT_FORMATS = [CSV, XLSX]
This can be set for a specific model admin by declaring the import_formats attribute.
EXPORT_FORMATS
A list that defines which file formats will be allowed during exports. Defaults
to IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS.
The values must be those provided in import_export.formats.base_formats e.g
# settings.py
from import_export.formats.base_formats import XLSX
EXPORT_FORMATS = [XLSX]
This can be set for a specific model admin by declaring the export_formats attribute.
IMPORT_EXPORT_IMPORT_IGNORE_BLANK_LINES
If set to True, rows without content will be ignored in XSLX imports.
This prevents an old Excel 1.0 bug which causes openpyxl max_rows to be counting all
logical empty rows. Some editors (like LibreOffice) might add \(2^{20}\) empty rows to the
file, which causes a significant slowdown. By default this is False.
Example app
There’s an example application that showcases what import_export can do.
Before starting, set up a virtual environment (“venv”) using these instructions.
You can initialize and run the example application as follows:
cd tests
./manage.py makemigrations
./manage.py migrate
./manage.py createsuperuser
./manage.py loaddata author.json category.json book.json
./manage.py runserver
For example import files, see Test data.
Configure logging
You can adjust the log level to see output as required. This is an example configuration to be placed in your application settings:
LOGGING = {
"version" 1,
"handlers": {
"console": {"level": "DEBUG", "class": "logging.StreamHandler"},
},
"loggers": {
"django.db.backends": {"level": "INFO", "handlers": ["console"]},
"import_export": {
"handlers": ["console"],
"level": "INFO",
},
},
}