Trigger action after file upload

Using Django
1

Hi guys,

I hit one question below, could you please help to give some suggestions? Appreciate.

I want to get duration of a videofile upload by user, then update this “duration” into database after file uploaded.

I find “post_save”, but it looks this execute before the file upload(before this file exist in this server path).

Here is my step:

  1. Create Model include Field: videoFile(FileField) and the duration of this video(FloatField)
  2. After user upload this file into server, I will run my algorithm in the file path and calculate this duration of this file
  3. After get this duration of this file, I need to update this database immediately

So my question is, how to execute my algo immediately after this file already uploaded into server? And then update database.

2

How are you handling the file upload? Are you doing it through a form where the data gets posted to a FileField within a model? If so, I believe you would have access to that file field within your form - and should be able to process the contents there - maybe run your algorithm in the form’s clean method.
(I’m hoping these are short / small video clips. I’d be concerned about memory usage and timeout issues.)

3

Thanks KenWhitesell. I’m now using the VUE frontend to POST file to the djangorestframe backend API. If this file not uploaded/exist on the server, I cannot access. So want to access immediately after the file uploaded, since I need to update the duration field immediately.

4

Hi KenWhitesell, so, any idea can catch the time when the file upload on the server? I find “post_save”, but this run actually before the file exist on the server. So if I use “post_save”, the file actually not stay on the server yet.
Thanks a lot!

5

You hadn’t mentioned in your original message that you were dealing with DRF. Unfortunately, I’ve never done anything with file uploads in the DRF environment, so I don’t have any specific information to provide.

Superficially it looks like you’re looking to work with either the MultiPartParser or the FileUploadParser - but that’s just what I can quickly find from the documentation. It appears to me that a custom parser would give you the hook you need to process the files.

Ken

6

Thanks a lot for your suggestions.

7

Hi KenWhitesell,

I find my question actually is how to access the InMemoryUploadedFile…

8

The UploadedFiles documentation shows that you can get access to the files through request.FILES in your view.