Is there a way to avoid django to upload same name file again by altering its name

Question

I'm trying to develop a simple model form by Django to upload pdf files. The form is based on a model. Every time, user upload a file a database table entry would be created with the file path (including filename), uploaded user name and time Etc.

when I upload the same file again, Django is uploading the same file by altering its name (poster-proposal.pdf ->poster-proposal_IomFZQM.pdf). It is also creating another entry in the database table.

I want Django to give the user a warning when he is trying to upload an already existing file saying (a file with the same name is already existing) or something like that and not to upload the duplicate file.

I followed this post,post 1 but it says it does not prevent Django from uploading the file.

I followed this method post 2, but I'm new to Django and it seems complicated. I believe for newer Django versions there should be an easier way to address this issue.

I added unique = True to FileField.It did not work

models.py

class files(models.Model):
    repo_id = models.ForeignKey(Repository, on_delete = models.CASCADE)
    username = models.CharField(db_column='username',max_length = 45)
    date = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True, db_column = 'date')
    file = models.FileField(upload_to='documents/', db_column = 'file', unique = True)
    indicator_name =models.CharField(db_column = 'indicator_name',max_length = 100)
    username = models.CharField(db_column='username',max_length = 45)

Any idea would be highly appreciated. Thanks

First of all you are using the same file name (like poster-proposal.pdf) for uploaded file as it is in the computer. Which is not a good idea. Again you can check the file name during upload as you have mentioned, but do you think that is a good idea? Suppose, a file you upload named as A.pdf and after some days you have another file with A.pdf and you have renamed the previous A.pdf to B.pdf, then Django will raise error for a new file because the filename is already in the database. — Bidhan Majhi, Apr 30 '19 at 06:53
check this ,https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55898518/do-not-save-model-on-duplicate-file-django-2 — JPG, Apr 30 '19 at 07:02
@BidhanMajhi understand your concern. But that is not a problem in this case. This web site willing to be used by research staff to upload pdf files. they will manually rename these files in a predefined pattern. As an example '2008_A_review_of_the_challenges_in_soil_quality_and_profitability_-Journal.pdf'. there should not be a second pdf file with the same name and if there is that surely a duplicate file that should be avoided. — Sasha, Apr 30 '19 at 07:03

Navid Zarepak · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-01T09:04:18.527

The simplest way is to search for the name and then upload the file:

# Note that file name depends on your upload_to path.
# Either you should include it in the search or you have to use something like:
# filter(file_contains="filename") which might return results that you don't want
filename = "documents/" + filename_you_want_to_upload
files = files.objects.filter(file=filename)

if files.count() > 0:
    # A file with that name exists.
    # Return some error or ...
else:
    # There is no file with that name.
    # Upload the file and save it to database.

Is there a way to avoid django to upload same name file again by altering its name

1 Answers1