Django Import-Export library An Easy Tutorial

Django Import-Export is a powerful and flexible tool for importing and exporting data in a Django application. It allows you to easily import and export data from various formats, such as CSV, Excel, and JSON. It also provides a simple and consistent interface for working with data, making it easy to integrate with other parts of your Django application.

To get started with Django Import-Export, you first need to install it by running the following command:


pip install django-import-export

Then, you need to add it to your Django project INSTALLED_APPS list in the settings.py file:


INSTALLED_APPS = ['import_export']

Once you’ve done that, you can begin using Django Import-Export in your views, forms, and models. Here’s a quick example of how you might use it in a view:


from django.shortcuts import render
from import_export import resources
from .models import Books

class BooksResource(resources.ModelResource):
    class Meta:
        model = Books

def export_data(request):
    book_resource = BooksResource()
    dataset = book_resource.export()
    response = HttpResponse(dataset.xls, content_type='application/vnd.ms-excel')
    response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename="Books.xls"'
    return response

In this example, we first import the resources module from the import_export package, as well as our Django model. We then create a resource class for our model, specifying the model to use in the Meta class. In our view function, we create an instance of this resource class, and use the export() method to export the data from our model to an Excel file.

We also can import data from different file formats like CSV, XLS, XLSX, JSON and many more using the import_data() method.


from django.shortcuts import render
from import_export import resources
from .models import Books

class BooksResource(resources.ModelResource):
    class Meta:
        model = Books

def import_data(request):
    if request.method == "POST":
        book_resource = BooksResource()
        dataset = Dataset()
        new_persons = request.FILES['myfile']

        imported_data = dataset.load(new_persons.read())
        result = book_resource.import_data(dataset, dry_run=True)  # Test the data import

        if not result.has_errors():
            book_resource.import_data(dataset, dry_run=False)  # Actually import now
    return render(request, 'books/import.html')

This is a basic tutorial on how you can use Django Import-Export to easily import and export data in your Django application. There are many other features and options available, such as field-level options, export/import filters, and more. You can check the documentation for more details and examples.