Manually associate an existing file to a model FileField

FileField_manual_initialisation.py

# Assuming you have a Article Model like this
# class Article(models.Model):
#   ... Some field
# 	media = models.FileField(upload_to="path_to_inner_media_folder", blank=True)

from django.core.files.base import ContentFile
import os

# Create an article with the associated model
new_article = Article()

original_file_path = 'path'
new_file_path = 'new_path'

fh = open(original_file_path, "r")
if fh:
	# Get the content of the file
	file_content = ContentFile(fh.read())
	# Set the media attribute of the article, but under an other path/filename
	new_article.media.save(new_file_path, file_content)
	# Save the article
	new_article.save()
# Close the file and delete it
fh.close()
if fh.closed:
	os.remove(unicode(fh.name))
	del fh

With reference to line 20, on line 22, i don't think you need to call save() again, unless you change other model fields. If it's just the file field, then line 20 is enough. What'd you think?

I would suggest:

# Assuming you have a Article Model like this
# class Article(models.Model):
#   ... Some field
# 	media = models.FileField(upload_to="path_to_inner_media_folder", blank=True)

from django.core.files.base import ContentFile
import os

# Create an article with the associated model
new_article = Article()

original_file_path = 'path'
new_file_path = 'new_path'

# With closes properly also on exceptions
with open(original_file_path, "rb") as fh
	# Get the content of the file, we also need to close the content file
	with ContentFile(fh.read()) as 	file_content:
	# Set the media attribute of the article, but under an other path/filename
		new_article.media.save(new_file_path, file_content)
		# Save the article
		new_article.save()

os.remove(unicode(fh.name))
del fh

Isn't there a way to simply associate the FileField to the actual file?

@andrestone that was works for me:

file_path = "..."  # it should be relative path to your settings.MEDIA_ROOT  
article.file = file_path  
article.save()```

@CarliJoy much more better! Thanks!

@ncopiy It may works if the file is already saved in the dir your model file field expect.
But if you want to deal with InMemoryFile or StringIO content, this snippets should handle the model file field base path you defined. It a little more complicated though, so it depends on your needs.