What is an efficient way of inserting thousands of records into an SQLite table using Django?

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I have to insert 8000+ records into a SQLite database using Django's ORM. This operation needs to be run as a cronjob about once per minute.
At the moment I'm using a for loop to iterate through all the items and then insert them one by one.
Example:

for item in items:
    entry = Entry(a1=item.a1, a2=item.a2)
    entry.save()

What is an efficient way of doing this?

Edit: A little comparison between the two insertion methods.

Without commit_manually decorator (11245 records):

nox@noxdevel marinetraffic]$ time python manage.py insrec             

real    1m50.288s
user    0m6.710s
sys     0m23.445s

Using commit_manually decorator (11245 records):

[nox@noxdevel marinetraffic]$ time python manage.py insrec                

real    0m18.464s
user    0m5.433s
sys     0m10.163s

Note: The test script also does some other operations besides inserting into the database (downloads a ZIP file, extracts an XML file from the ZIP archive, parses the XML file) so the time needed for execution does not necessarily represent the time needed to insert the records.

insert sqlite django sql python
9 Answers

You want to check out django.db.transaction.commit_manually.

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/transactions/#django-db-transaction-commit-manually

So it would be something like:

from django.db import transaction

@transaction.commit_manually
def viewfunc(request):
    ...
    for item in items:
        entry = Entry(a1=item.a1, a2=item.a2)
        entry.save()
    transaction.commit()

Which will only commit once, instead at each save().

In django 1.3 context managers were introduced. So now you can use transaction.commit_on_success() in a similar way:

from django.db import transaction

def viewfunc(request):
    ...
    with transaction.commit_on_success():
        for item in items:
            entry = Entry(a1=item.a1, a2=item.a2)
            entry.save()

In django 1.4, bulk_create was added, allowing you to create lists of your model objects and then commit them all at once.

NOTE the save method will not be called when using bulk create.

>>> Entry.objects.bulk_create([
...     Entry(headline="Django 1.0 Released"),
...     Entry(headline="Django 1.1 Announced"),
...     Entry(headline="Breaking: Django is awesome")
... ])

In django 1.6, transaction.atomic was introduced, intended to replace now legacy functions commit_on_success and commit_manually.

from the django documentation on atomic:

atomic is usable both as a decorator:

from django.db import transaction

@transaction.atomic
def viewfunc(request):
    # This code executes inside a transaction.
    do_stuff()

and as a context manager:

from django.db import transaction

def viewfunc(request):
    # This code executes in autocommit mode (Django's default).
    do_stuff()

    with transaction.atomic():
        # This code executes inside a transaction.
        do_more_stuff()
monkut_247180

Have a look at this. It's meant for use out-of-the-box with MySQL only, but there are pointers on what to do for other databases.

user_1189030

You might be better off bulk-loading the items - prepare a file and use a bulk load tool. This will be vastly more efficient than 8000 individual inserts.

Nigel_Campbell_154010

You should check out DSE. I wrote DSE to solve these kinds of problems ( massive insert or updates ). Using the django orm is a dead-end, you got to do it in plain SQL and DSE takes care of much of that for you.

Thomas

user_794700 
def order(request):    
    if request.method=="GET":
        cust_name = request.GET.get('cust_name', '')
        cust_cont = request.GET.get('cust_cont', '')
        pincode = request.GET.get('pincode', '')
        city_name = request.GET.get('city_name', '')
        state = request.GET.get('state', '')
        contry = request.GET.get('contry', '')
        gender = request.GET.get('gender', '')
        paid_amt = request.GET.get('paid_amt', '')
        due_amt = request.GET.get('due_amt', '')
        order_date = request.GET.get('order_date', '')
        print(order_date)
        prod_name = request.GET.getlist('prod_name[]', '')
        prod_qty = request.GET.getlist('prod_qty[]', '')
        prod_price = request.GET.getlist('prod_price[]', '')
        print(prod_name)
        print(prod_qty)
        print(prod_price)
        # insert customer information into customer table
        try:
            # Insert Data into customer table
            cust_tab = Customer(customer_name=cust_name, customer_contact=cust_cont, gender=gender, city_name=city_name, pincode=pincode, state_name=state, contry_name=contry)
            cust_tab.save()
            # Retrive Id from customer table
            custo_id = Customer.objects.values_list('customer_id').last()   #It is return
Tuple as result from Queryset
            custo_id = int(custo_id[0]) #It is convert the Tuple in INT
            # Insert Data into Order table
            order_tab = Orders(order_date=order_date, paid_amt=paid_amt, due_amt=due_amt, customer_id=custo_id)
            order_tab.save()
            # Insert Data into Products table
            # insert multiple data at a one time from djanog using while loop
            i=0
            while(i<len(prod_name)):
                p_n = prod_name[i]
                p_q = prod_qty[i]
                p_p = prod_price[i]
                # this is checking the variable, if variable is null so fill the varable value in database
                if p_n != "" and p_q != "" and p_p != "":
                    prod_tab = Products(product_name=p_n, product_qty=p_q, product_price=p_p, customer_id=custo_id)
                    prod_tab.save()
                i=i+1
user_114416650

I recommend using plain SQL (not ORM) you can insert multiple rows with a single insert:

insert into A select from B;

The select from B portion of your sql could be as complicated as you want it to get as long as the results match the columns in table A and there are no constraint conflicts.

user_265920 
def order(request):    
    if request.method=="GET":
        # get the value from html page
        cust_name = request.GET.get('cust_name', '')
        cust_cont = request.GET.get('cust_cont', '')
        pincode = request.GET.get('pincode', '')
        city_name = request.GET.get('city_name', '')
        state = request.GET.get('state', '')
        contry = request.GET.get('contry', '')
        gender = request.GET.get('gender', '')
        paid_amt = request.GET.get('paid_amt', '')
        due_amt = request.GET.get('due_amt', '')
        order_date = request.GET.get('order_date', '')
        prod_name = request.GET.getlist('prod_name[]', '')
        prod_qty = request.GET.getlist('prod_qty[]', '')
        prod_price = request.GET.getlist('prod_price[]', '')

        # insert customer information into customer table
        try:
            # Insert Data into customer table
            cust_tab = Customer(customer_name=cust_name, customer_contact=cust_cont, gender=gender, city_name=city_name, pincode=pincode, state_name=state, contry_name=contry)
            cust_tab.save()
            # Retrive Id from customer table
            custo_id = Customer.objects.values_list('customer_id').last()   #It is return Tuple as result from Queryset
            custo_id = int(custo_id[0]) #It is convert the Tuple in INT
            # Insert Data into Order table
            order_tab = Orders(order_date=order_date, paid_amt=paid_amt, due_amt=due_amt, customer_id=custo_id)
            order_tab.save()
            # Insert Data into Products table
            # insert multiple data at a one time from djanog using while loop
            i=0
            while(i<len(prod_name)):
                p_n = prod_name[i]
                p_q = prod_qty[i]
                p_p = prod_price[i]

                # this is checking the variable, if variable is null so fill the varable value in database
                if p_n != "" and p_q != "" and p_p != "":
                    prod_tab = Products(product_name=p_n, product_qty=p_q, product_price=p_p, customer_id=custo_id)
                    prod_tab.save()
                i=i+1

            return HttpResponse('Your Record Has been Saved')
        except Exception as e:
            return HttpResponse(e)     

    return render(request, 'invoice_system/order.html')
user_114416650
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