where to put django signal receiver code, spread them over multiple files?

Question

I've put my signal receiver code in the respective model file.

However, signal receivers keep growing and I'd like to separate them over multiple files.

I haven't seen discussion on where to put signal receiver codes.

(makes me suspect that I'm not supposed to make many signal receivers maybe?)

Answer 1

See the docs:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/topics/signals/#connecting-receiver-functions

it's common to put them in a separate signals.py file, perhaps one per module in your project, but you need to ensure that these files get imported so that your signal receivers get registered.

as detailed in the docs above, Django 1.7+ now has the AppConfig.ready mechanism for this kind of case

There's a good explanation here:
http://chriskief.com/2014/02/28/django-1-7-signals-appconfig/

(as an example of what you might do)

basically:

# myapp/__init__.py
default_app_config = 'myapp.apps.MyAppConfig'

and

# myapp/apps.py
from django.apps import AppConfig

class MyAppConfig(AppConfig):

    name = 'myapp'
    verbose_name = 'My App'

    def ready(self):

        # import signal handlers
        import myapp.signals.handlers