django - Temporarily disable auto_now / auto_now_add

Question

I have a model like this:

class FooBar(models.Model):
    createtime = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    lastupdatetime = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)

I want to overwrite the two date fields for some model instances (used when migrating data). The current solution looks like this:

for field in new_entry._meta.local_fields:
    if field.name == "lastupdatetime":
        field.auto_now = False
    elif field.name == "createtime":
        field.auto_now_add = False

new_entry.createtime = date
new_entry.lastupdatetime = date
new_entry.save()

for field in new_entry._meta.local_fields:
    if field.name == "lastupdatetime":
        field.auto_now = True
    elif field.name == "createtime":
        field.auto_now_add = True

Is there a better solution?

Answer 1

I've recently faced this situation while testing my application. I needed to "force" an expired timestamp. In my case I did the trick by using a queryset update. Like this:

# my model
class FooBar(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    updated_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True, auto_now_add=True)



# my tests
foo = FooBar.objects.get(pk=1)

# force a timestamp
lastweek = datetime.datetime.now() - datetime.timedelta(days=7)
FooBar.objects.filter(pk=foo.pk).update(updated_at=lastweek)

# do the testing.