Model object's history tracking in Django

Model history tracking in Django allows you to track changes made to model objects, including what changes were made, when they occurred, and helps in recovery of deleted objects. The django-simple-history package provides an easy way to implement this functionality.

Installation and Setup

First, install the django-simple-history library ?

pip install django-simple-history

Add the package to your Django settings in settings.py ?

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # other apps
    'simple_history',
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    # other middleware
    'simple_history.middleware.HistoryRequestMiddleware',
]

The middleware captures the user making changes and timestamps for historical records.

Creating a Model with History Tracking

In models.py, add the HistoricalRecords field to enable tracking ?

from django.db import models
from simple_history.models import HistoricalRecords

class StudentData(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    standard = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    section = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    history = HistoricalRecords()

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

The history field automatically tracks all create, update, and delete operations on this model.

Admin Configuration

Register the model with history tracking in admin.py ?

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import StudentData
from simple_history.admin import SimpleHistoryAdmin

admin.site.register(StudentData, SimpleHistoryAdmin)

Run the database migrations to create the history table ?

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser

Accessing Historical Data

You can query historical records programmatically in views or Django shell ?

# Get all historical records for a student
student = StudentData.objects.get(id=1)
history = student.history.all()

# Print historical changes
for record in history:
    print(f"Changed on: {record.history_date}")
    print(f"Change type: {record.history_type}")
    print(f"Changed by: {record.history_user}")
    print(f"Name: {record.name}")
    print("---")

Key Features

Conclusion

Django-simple-history provides comprehensive model history tracking with minimal setup. It automatically creates historical records for all model changes and integrates seamlessly with Django admin for easy management and recovery of data.