Signals

A list of all the signals that Django sends.

See also

See the documentation on the signal dispatcher for information regarding how to register for and receive signals.

The comment framework sends a set of comment-related signals.

The authentication framework sends signals when a user is logged in / out.

Model signals

The django.db.models.signals module defines a set of signals sent by the module system.

Warning

Many of these signals are sent by various model methods like __init__() or save() that you can overwrite in your own code.

If you override these methods on your model, you must call the parent class’ methods for this signals to be sent.

Note also that Django stores signal handlers as weak references by default, so if your handler is a local function, it may be garbage collected. To prevent this, pass weak=False when you call the signal’s connect().

pre_init

django.db.models.signals.pre_init

Whenever you instantiate a Django model,, this signal is sent at the beginning of the model’s __init__() method.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The model class that just had an instance created.
args
A list of positional arguments passed to __init__():
kwargs
A dictionary of keyword arguments passed to __init__():.

For example, the tutorial has this line:

p = Poll(question="What's up?", pub_date=datetime.now())

The arguments sent to a pre_init handler would be:

Argument Value
sender Poll (the class itself)
args [] (an empty list because there were no positional arguments passed to __init__.)
kwargs {'question': "What's up?", 'pub_date': datetime.now()}

post_init

django.db.models.signals.post_init

Like pre_init, but this one is sent when the __init__(): method finishes.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
As above: the model class that just had an instance created.
instance
The actual instance of the model that’s just been created.

pre_save

django.db.models.signals.pre_save

This is sent at the beginning of a model’s save() method.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The model class.
instance
The actual instance being saved.
raw
A boolean; True if the model is saved exactly as presented (i.e. when loading a fixture). One should not query/modify other records in the database as the database might not be in a consistent state yet.
Please see the release notes
using
The database alias being used.

post_save

django.db.models.signals.post_save

Like pre_save, but sent at the end of the save() method.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The model class.
instance
The actual instance being saved.
created
A boolean; True if a new record was created.
raw
A boolean; True if the model is saved exactly as presented (i.e. when loading a fixture). One should not query/modify other records in the database as the database might not be in a consistent state yet.
Please see the release notes
using
The database alias being used.

pre_delete

django.db.models.signals.pre_delete

Sent at the beginning of a model’s delete() method and a queryset’s delete() method.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The model class.
instance
The actual instance being deleted.
Please see the release notes
using
The database alias being used.

post_delete

django.db.models.signals.post_delete

Like pre_delete, but sent at the end of a model’s delete() method and a queryset’s delete() method.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The model class.
instance

The actual instance being deleted.

Note that the object will no longer be in the database, so be very careful what you do with this instance.

Please see the release notes
using
The database alias being used.

m2m_changed

django.db.models.signals.m2m_changed
Please see the release notes

Sent when a ManyToManyField is changed on a model instance. Strictly speaking, this is not a model signal since it is sent by the ManyToManyField, but since it complements the pre_save/post_save and pre_delete/post_delete when it comes to tracking changes to models, it is included here.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The intermediate model class describing the ManyToManyField. This class is automatically created when a many-to-many field is defined; you can access it using the through attribute on the many-to-many field.
instance
The instance whose many-to-many relation is updated. This can be an instance of the sender, or of the class the ManyToManyField is related to.
action

A string indicating the type of update that is done on the relation. This can be one of the following:

"pre_add"
Sent before one or more objects are added to the relation.
"post_add"
Sent after one or more objects are added to the relation.
"pre_remove"
Sent before one or more objects are removed from the relation.
"post_remove"
Sent after one or more objects are removed from the relation.
"pre_clear"
Sent before the relation is cleared.
"post_clear"
Sent after the relation is cleared.
reverse
Indicates which side of the relation is updated (i.e., if it is the forward or reverse relation that is being modified).
model
The class of the objects that are added to, removed from or cleared from the relation.
pk_set

For the pre_add, post_add, pre_remove and post_remove actions, this is a list of primary key values that have been added to or removed from the relation.

For the pre_clear and post_clear actions, this is None.

Please see the release notes
using
The database alias being used.

For example, if a Pizza can have multiple Topping objects, modeled like this:

class Topping(models.Model):
    # ...
    pass

class Pizza(models.Model):
    # ...
    toppings = models.ManyToManyField(Topping)

If we would do something like this:

>>> p = Pizza.object.create(...)
>>> t = Topping.objects.create(...)
>>> p.toppings.add(t)

the arguments sent to a m2m_changed handler would be:

Argument Value
sender Pizza.toppings.through (the intermediate m2m class)
instance p (the Pizza instance being modified)
action "pre_add" (followed by a separate signal with "post_add")
reverse False (Pizza contains the ManyToManyField, so this call modifies the forward relation)
model Topping (the class of the objects added to the Pizza)
pk_set [t.id] (since only Topping t was added to the relation)
using "default" (since the default router sends writes here)

And if we would then do something like this:

>>> t.pizza_set.remove(p)

the arguments sent to a m2m_changed handler would be:

Argument Value
sender Pizza.toppings.through (the intermediate m2m class)
instance t (the Topping instance being modified)
action "pre_remove" (followed by a separate signal with "post_remove")
reverse True (Pizza contains the ManyToManyField, so this call modifies the reverse relation)
model Pizza (the class of the objects removed from the Topping)
pk_set [p.id] (since only Pizza p was removed from the relation)
using "default" (since the default router sends writes here)

class_prepared

django.db.models.signals.class_prepared

Sent whenever a model class has been “prepared” – that is, once model has been defined and registered with Django’s model system. Django uses this signal internally; it’s not generally used in third-party applications.

Arguments that are sent with this signal:

sender
The model class which was just prepared.

Management signals

Signals sent by django-admin.

post_syncdb

django.db.models.signals.post_syncdb

Sent by the syncdb command after it installs an application, and the flush command.

Any handlers that listen to this signal need to be written in a particular place: a management module in one of your INSTALLED_APPS. If handlers are registered anywhere else they may not be loaded by syncdb. It is important that handlers of this signal perform idempotent changes (e.g. no database alterations) as this may cause the flush management command to fail if it also ran during the syncdb command.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The models module that was just installed. That is, if syncdb just installed an app called "foo.bar.myapp", sender will be the foo.bar.myapp.models module.
app
Same as sender.
created_models
A list of the model classes from any app which syncdb has created so far.
verbosity

Indicates how much information manage.py is printing on screen. See the --verbosity flag for details.

Functions which listen for post_syncdb should adjust what they output to the screen based on the value of this argument.

interactive

If interactive is True, it’s safe to prompt the user to input things on the command line. If interactive is False, functions which listen for this signal should not try to prompt for anything.

For example, the django.contrib.auth app only prompts to create a superuser when interactive is True.

For example, yourapp/management/__init__.py could be written like:

from django.db.models.signals import post_syncdb
import yourapp.models

def my_callback(sender, **kwargs):
    # Your specific logic here
    pass

post_syncdb.connect(my_callback, sender=yourapp.models)

Request/response signals

Signals sent by the core framework when processing a request.

request_started

django.core.signals.request_started

Sent when Django begins processing an HTTP request.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The handler class – e.g. django.core.handlers.wsgi.WsgiHandler – that handled the request.

request_finished

django.core.signals.request_finished

Sent when Django finishes processing an HTTP request.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The handler class, as above.

got_request_exception

django.core.signals.got_request_exception

This signal is sent whenever Django encounters an exception while processing an incoming HTTP request.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The handler class, as above.
request
The HttpRequest object.

Test signals

Signals only sent when running tests.

setting_changed

Please see the release notes
django.test.signals.setting_changed

This signal is sent when the value of a setting is changed through the django.test.TestCase.setting() context manager or the django.test.utils.override_settings() decorator/context manager.

It’s actually sent twice: when the new value is applied (“setup”) and when the original value is restored (“teardown”).

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The settings handler.
setting
The name of the setting.
value
The value of the setting after the change. For settings that initially don’t exist, in the “teardown” phase, value is None.

template_rendered

django.test.signals.template_rendered

Sent when the test system renders a template. This signal is not emitted during normal operation of a Django server – it is only available during testing.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The Template object which was rendered.
template
Same as sender
context
The Context with which the template was rendered.

Database Wrappers

Signals sent by the database wrapper when a database connection is initiated.

connection_created

django.db.backends.signals.connection_created
The connection argument was added

Sent when the database wrapper makes the initial connection to the database. This is particularly useful if you’d like to send any post connection commands to the SQL backend.

Arguments sent with this signal:

sender
The database wrapper class – i.e. django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2.DatabaseWrapper or django.db.backends.mysql.DatabaseWrapper, etc.
connection
The database connection that was opened. This can be used in a multiple-database configuration to differentiate connection signals from different databases.
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