I want to create a json file from my Django sqlite3 database as a backup rather than displaying it on a webpage

Question

I am able to get the data from my sqlite3 database and project it in a webpage in Json but am having trouble replicating that when wanting to create a file. I am new to python, Django and working with databases. I have been looking around and tried several pieces of code, but the information I could find pertained to what I have already achieved, which is displaying the data on a webpage.

import json
import os

json_utils.py

def get_ip_list_json() -> dict:
    # Initialize the JSON response with a version, description, and a default object
    json_response = {
        "version": "",
        "description": "",
        "objects": [
            {
                "name": "",
                "id": "",
                "description": "",
                "ranges": ["2.2.2.2"],
            },
        ],
    }

    # Dictionary to map group IDs to their details and IP ranges
    group_map = {}

    # Query the BlockedList for active IPs (end_date is null or in the future)
    for ip in BlockedList.objects.filter(
        Q(end_date__isnull=True) | Q(end_date__gte=timezone.now())
    ).select_related("group"):
        group_id = str(ip.group.id)
        # If the group is not already in the map, add it
        if group_id not in group_map:
            group_map[group_id] = {
                "name": ip.group.name,
                "id": ip.group.group_id,
                "description": ip.group.description,
                "ranges": [],
            }
        # Append the IP address to the group's ranges
        group_map[group_id]["ranges"].append(ip.address)

    # Convert the group map to a list of objects for the JSON response
    json_response["objects"] = list(group_map.values())
    return json_response

Edit: This is how you would go about answering this.

def create_ip_file():
    try:
        base_dir_json = ""
        filename = ""

        full_path_json = os.path.join(base_dir_json, filename)

        # Create the JSON file using the get_ip_list_json function
        with open(full_path_json, "w") as f:
            json_data = get_ip_list_json()
            f.write(json.dumps(json_data, indent=4))

Answer 1

You already have your JSONable data in json_response, so all that's left to do is to write that to a file. Since you can't quite rely on the working directory of your server to be correct, I would recommend specifying a directory for those dumps explicitly in your settings, and using it.

from django.conf import settings
import json
import time

# ...

dump_path = os.path.join(settings.DUMPS_DIRECTORY, f"dump-{int(time.time())}.json")
with open(dump_path, "w") as fp:
    json.dump(json_response, fp)

return JsonResponse({"message": f"ok, saved {dump_path}"}) 

On the other hand, if you want to tell send the data to the user but tell the user's browser that it should handle this as a file, use the Content-Disposition header to say so:

filename = f"dump-{int(time.time())}.json"
response = JsonResponse(json_response)
response["Content-Disposition"] = f"attachment; filename={filename}"
return response