Maintaining a Read-Only Database in Django using Python Script

Question

I have a python script which downloads data from an API source and transforms it in to a a list of dictionaries that I save as a JSON file.

Separately, I have a Django project that uses this data to serve the data in a web page. I am currently using the default SQLite DB but plan on using Postgresql in production.

The data is updated frequently, and so the script needs to download the new data on a daily basis and update the data being used by the Djano project's database.

The issue is I can make the Django project "work" with dummy, sample data; and the script works independently of Django.

How do I integrate this downloading script to work with Django and "push" new records and updates to the Django DB using the python script? Users of the Django project will only read the data and not write / update the data otherwise.

I have reviewed a variety of tutorials such as the Django polls app but am lost on how to marry these two pieces together. Is this a case of using fixtures over and over against to reload data into the DB? It appears that this is not the best method as fixtures are only used for test data and would not be automatic.

What am I missing? Alternatively, is Django not the best way to serve data from a DB that is read-only? What would be a better alternative?

Eugene Prikazchikov · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-29 20:21:13Z

1

One way to approach this is following:

Create a model in your django project to store downloaded data
Convert python script that downloads the data to management command https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.1/howto/custom-management-commands/
Run the management command periodically (via cron or some other means that you prefer)

answered Aug 29, 2018 at 20:21

Eugene Prikazchikov

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Owais Arshad Over a year ago

This makes sense. I was thinking of using Cron, but did not realise that you could create custom commands under manage.py . Will give this a go.

Rosey · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-29 20:20:46Z

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Check out this answer. You have done most of the work already. There's a number of ways you could approach inserting your JSON values into your database. You don't even have to go through Django if you don't want to. All that matters is that your data ends up in the database somehow. Django doesn't have to be the one inserting those values to use them either, it can read values placed in the database by 3rd parties.

answered Aug 29, 2018 at 20:20

Rosey

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