Disconnect signals for models and reconnect in django

For a clean and reusable solution, you can use a context manager:

class temp_disconnect_signal():
    """ Temporarily disconnect a model from a signal """
    def __init__(self, signal, receiver, sender, dispatch_uid=None):
        self.signal = signal
        self.receiver = receiver
        self.sender = sender
        self.dispatch_uid = dispatch_uid

    def __enter__(self):
        self.signal.disconnect(
            receiver=self.receiver,
            sender=self.sender,
            dispatch_uid=self.dispatch_uid,
            weak=False
        )

    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
        self.signal.connect(
            receiver=self.receiver,
            sender=self.sender,
            dispatch_uid=self.dispatch_uid,
            weak=False
        )

Now, you can do something like the following:

from django.db.models import signals

from your_app.signals import some_receiver_func
from your_app.models import SomeModel

...
kwargs = {
    'signal': signals.post_save,
    'receiver': some_receiver_func,
    'sender': SomeModel, 
    'dispatch_uid': "optional_uid"
}
with temp_disconnect_signal(**kwargs):
    SomeModel.objects.create(
        name='Woohoo',
        slug='look_mom_no_signals',
    )

Note: If your signal handler uses a dispatch_uid, you MUST use the dispatch_uid arg.

If you only want disconnect and reconnect one custom signal, you may use this code:

def disconnect_signal(signal, receiver, sender):
    disconnect = getattr(signal, 'disconnect')
    disconnect(receiver, sender)

def reconnect_signal(signal, receiver, sender):
    connect = getattr(signal, 'connect')
    connect(receiver, sender=sender)

In this way you can make this:

disconnect_signal(pre_save, pre_save_model, MyModel)
a.save()
reconnect_signal(pre_save, pre_save_model, MyModel)

You can connect and disconnect signals as Haystack does in RealTimeSearchIndex, which seems more standard:

from django.db.models import signals
signals.pre_save.disconnect(pre_save_model, sender=MyModel)
a.save()
signals.pre_save.connect(pre_save_model, sender=MyModel)

I haven't tested the following code, but it should work:

from django.db.models.signals import pre_save


def save_without_the_signals(instance, *args, **kwargs):
    receivers = pre_save.receivers
    pre_save.receivers = []
    new_instance = instance.save(*args, **kwargs)
    pre_save.receivers = receivers
    return new_instance

It will silence signals from all sender's though not just instance.__class__.

---

This version disables only the given model's signals:

from django.db.models.signals import pre_save
from django.dispatch.dispatcher import _make_id


def save_without_the_signals(instance, *args, **kwargs):
    receivers = []
    sender_id = _make_id(instance.__class__)
    for index in xrange(len(self.receivers)):
        if pre_save.receivers[index][0][1] == sender_id:
            receivers.append(pre_save.receivers.pop(index))
    new_instance = instance.save(*args, **kwargs)
    pre_save.receivers.extend(receivers)
    return new_instance