Question

I have an existing file on disk (say /folder/file.txt) and a FileField model field in Django.

When I do

instance.field = File(file('/folder/file.txt'))
instance.save()

it re-saves the file as file_1.txt (the next time it’s _2, etc.).

I understand why, but I don’t want this behavior – I know the file I want the field to be associated with is really there waiting for me, and I just want Django to point to it.

How?

Answer 1

If you want to do this permanently, you need to create your own FileStorage class

import os
from django.conf import settings
from django.core.files.storage import FileSystemStorage

class MyFileStorage(FileSystemStorage):

    # This method is actually defined in Storage
    def get_available_name(self, name):
        if self.exists(name):
            os.remove(os.path.join(settings.MEDIA_ROOT, name))
        return name # simply returns the name passed

Now in your model, you use your modified MyFileStorage

from mystuff.customs import MyFileStorage

mfs = MyFileStorage()

class SomeModel(model.Model):
   my_file = model.FileField(storage=mfs)