django-psycopg-infinity 0.1.1

Django field and PostgreSQL backend for infinity timestamp support with psycopg3

Django field and PostgreSQL backend for infinity timestamp support with psycopg >=3.

Maps PostgreSQL’s infinity / -infinity timestamp values to datetime.max / datetime.min in Python, making them usable as regular DateTimeField values in Django models.

Currently only DateTimeField is supported. DateField and TimeField infinity values are not yet handled. Contributions welcome!

Installation

pip install django-psycopg-infinity

Configuration

Set the custom database backend in your Django settings:

DATABASES = {
    "default": {
        "ENGINE": "django_psycopg_infinity.backends.postgresql",
        # ... other settings
    },
}

Then use DateTimeInfinityField in your models:

from django.db import models
from django_psycopg_infinity.fields import DateTimeInfinityField

class MyModel(models.Model):
    valid_until = DateTimeInfinityField(null=True, blank=True)

Usage

from datetime import datetime

# Store positive infinity
obj.valid_until = datetime.max
obj.save()

# Or use the string representation
obj.valid_until = "infinity"
obj.save()

# Retrieve - the returned datetime matches the column type:
# aware (UTC) for `timestamp with time zone` columns,
# naive for `timestamp without time zone` columns.
obj.refresh_from_db()
assert obj.valid_until == datetime.max

Convenience constants

The package avoids calling timezone.get_default_timezone() at import time so it can be imported before Django is fully configured. If you need timezone-aware infinity sentinels (e.g. for model field defaults), derive them in your own module:

from django_psycopg_infinity.utils import INFINITY, NEGATIVE_INFINITY, make_aware

LOCAL_INFINITY = make_aware(INFINITY)
LOCAL_NEGATIVE_INFINITY = make_aware(NEGATIVE_INFINITY)

Then use them as defaults:

class MyModel(models.Model):
    end_time = DateTimeInfinityField(default=LOCAL_INFINITY)

For fields backed by timestamp without time zone columns, use the bare INFINITY / NEGATIVE_INFINITY constants instead — a tz-aware default would mismatch the naive values that the loader returns from those columns.

Development

Tests require a running PostgreSQL instance:

cp .env.example .env   # edit as needed
uv run runtests.py

Releasing

Releases are published to PyPI automatically when a version tag is pushed. The CI runs the full test suite before publishing.

Create a new release on GitHub with a v-prefixed tag (e.g. v0.1.0) and the workflow handles the rest.

Versioning is derived from git tags via hatch-vcs, so there are no version strings to update manually.

License

Apache-2.0