Welcome to Faker’s documentation!¶
Faker is a Python package that generates fake data for you. Whether you need to bootstrap your database, create good-looking XML documents, fill-in your persistence to stress test it, or anonymize data taken from a production service, Faker is for you.
Faker is heavily inspired by PHP Faker, Perl Faker, and by Ruby Faker.
_|_|_|_| _|
_| _|_|_| _| _| _|_| _| _|_|
_|_|_| _| _| _|_| _|_|_|_| _|_|
_| _| _| _| _| _| _|
_| _|_|_| _| _| _|_|_| _|
For more details, see the extended docs.
Basic Usage¶
Install with pip:
pip install Faker
Note: this package was previously called fake-factory
.
Use faker.Faker()
to create and initialize a faker
generator, which can generate data by accessing properties named after
the type of data you want.
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()
fake.name()
# 'Lucy Cechtelar'
fake.address()
# '426 Jordy Lodge
# Cartwrightshire, SC 88120-6700'
fake.text()
# 'Sint velit eveniet. Rerum atque repellat voluptatem quia rerum. Numquam excepturi
# beatae sint laudantium consequatur. Magni occaecati itaque sint et sit tempore. Nesciunt
# amet quidem. Iusto deleniti cum autem ad quia aperiam.
# A consectetur quos aliquam. In iste aliquid et aut similique suscipit. Consequatur qui
# quaerat iste minus hic expedita. Consequuntur error magni et laboriosam. Aut aspernatur
# voluptatem sit aliquam. Dolores voluptatum est.
# Aut molestias et maxime. Fugit autem facilis quos vero. Eius quibusdam possimus est.
# Ea quaerat et quisquam. Deleniti sunt quam. Adipisci consequatur id in occaecati.
# Et sint et. Ut ducimus quod nemo ab voluptatum.'
Each call to method fake.name()
yields a different (random) result.
This is because faker forwards faker.Generator.method_name()
calls
to faker.Generator.format(method_name)
.
for _ in range(10):
print(fake.name())
# 'Adaline Reichel'
# 'Dr. Santa Prosacco DVM'
# 'Noemy Vandervort V'
# 'Lexi O'Conner'
# 'Gracie Weber'
# 'Roscoe Johns'
# 'Emmett Lebsack'
# 'Keegan Thiel'
# 'Wellington Koelpin II'
# 'Ms. Karley Kiehn V'
Providers¶
Each of the generator properties (like name
, address
, and
lorem
) are called “fake”. A faker generator has many of them,
packaged in “providers”.
from faker import Faker
from faker.providers import internet
fake = Faker()
fake.add_provider(internet)
print(fake.ipv4_private())
Check the extended docs for a list of bundled providers and a list of community providers.
Localization¶
faker.Faker
can take a locale as an argument, to return localized
data. If no localized provider is found, the factory falls back to the
default en_US locale.
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker('it_IT')
for _ in range(10):
print(fake.name())
# 'Elda Palumbo'
# 'Pacifico Giordano'
# 'Sig. Avide Guerra'
# 'Yago Amato'
# 'Eustachio Messina'
# 'Dott. Violante Lombardo'
# 'Sig. Alighieri Monti'
# 'Costanzo Costa'
# 'Nazzareno Barbieri'
# 'Max Coppola'
You can check available Faker locales in the source code, under the providers package. The localization of Faker is an ongoing process, for which we need your help. Please don’t hesitate to create a localized provider for your own locale and submit a Pull Request (PR).
Included localized providers:
- ar_EG - Arabic (Egypt)
- ar_PS - Arabic (Palestine)
- ar_SA - Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
- bg_BG - Bulgarian
- bs_BA - Bosnian
- cs_CZ - Czech
- de_DE - German
- dk_DK - Danish
- el_GR - Greek
- en_AU - English (Australia)
- en_CA - English (Canada)
- en_GB - English (Great Britain)
- en_NZ - English (New Zealand)
- en_US - English (United States)
- es_ES - Spanish (Spain)
- es_MX - Spanish (Mexico)
- et_EE - Estonian
- fa_IR - Persian (Iran)
- fi_FI - Finnish
- fr_FR - French
- hi_IN - Hindi
- hr_HR - Croatian
- hu_HU - Hungarian
- hy_AM - Armenian
- it_IT - Italian
- ja_JP - Japanese
- ka_GE - Georgian (Georgia)
- ko_KR - Korean
- lt_LT - Lithuanian
- lv_LV - Latvian
- ne_NP - Nepali
- nl_NL - Dutch (Netherlands)
- no_NO - Norwegian
- pl_PL - Polish
- pt_BR - Portuguese (Brazil)
- pt_PT - Portuguese (Portugal)
- ro_RO - Romanian
- ru_RU - Russian
- sl_SI - Slovene
- sv_SE - Swedish
- tr_TR - Turkish
- uk_UA - Ukrainian
- zh_CN - Chinese (China)
- zh_TW - Chinese (Taiwan)
Command line usage¶
When installed, you can invoke faker from the command-line:
faker [-h] [--version] [-o output]
[-l {bg_BG,cs_CZ,...,zh_CN,zh_TW}]
[-r REPEAT] [-s SEP]
[-i {package.containing.custom_provider otherpkg.containing.custom_provider}]
[fake] [fake argument [fake argument ...]]
Where:
faker
: is the script when installed in your environment, in development you could usepython -m faker
instead-h
,--help
: shows a help message--version
: shows the program’s version number-o FILENAME
: redirects the output to the specified filename-l {bg_BG,cs_CZ,...,zh_CN,zh_TW}
: allows use of a localized provider-r REPEAT
: will generate a specified number of outputs-s SEP
: will generate the specified separator after each generated output-i {my.custom_provider other.custom_provider}
list of additional custom providers to use. Note that is the import path of the package containing your Provider class, not the custom Provider class itself.fake
: is the name of the fake to generate an output for, such asname
,address
, ortext
[fake argument ...]
: optional arguments to pass to the fake (e.g. the profile fake takes an optional list of comma separated field names as the first argument)
Examples:
$ faker address
968 Bahringer Garden Apt. 722
Kristinaland, NJ 09890
$ faker -l de_DE address
Samira-Niemeier-Allee 56
94812 Biedenkopf
$ faker profile ssn,birthdate
{'ssn': u'628-10-1085', 'birthdate': '2008-03-29'}
$ faker -r=3 -s=";" name
Willam Kertzmann;
Josiah Maggio;
Gayla Schmitt;
How to create a Provider¶
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()
# first, import a similar Provider or use the default one
from faker.providers import BaseProvider
# create new provider class. Note that the class name _must_ be ``Provider``.
class Provider(BaseProvider):
def foo(self):
return 'bar'
# then add new provider to faker instance
fake.add_provider(Provider)
# now you can use:
fake.foo()
# 'bar'
How to customize the Lorem Provider¶
You can provide your own sets of words if you don’t want to use the default lorem ipsum one. The following example shows how to do it with a list of words picked from cakeipsum :
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()
my_word_list = [
'danish','cheesecake','sugar',
'Lollipop','wafer','Gummies',
'sesame','Jelly','beans',
'pie','bar','Ice','oat' ]
fake.sentence()
# 'Expedita at beatae voluptatibus nulla omnis.'
fake.sentence(ext_word_list=my_word_list)
# 'Oat beans oat Lollipop bar cheesecake.'
How to use with Factory Boy¶
Factory Boy already ships with integration with Faker
. Simply use the
factory.Faker
method of factory_boy
:
import factory
from myapp.models import Book
class BookFactory(factory.Factory):
class Meta:
model = Book
title = factory.Faker('sentence', nb_words=4)
author_name = factory.Faker('name')
Accessing the random instance¶
The .random
property on the generator returns the instance of random.Random
used to generate the values:
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()
fake.random
fake.random.getstate()
By default all generators share the same instance of random.Random
, which
can be accessed with from faker.generator import random
. Using this may
be useful for plugins that want to affect all faker instances.
Seeding the Generator¶
When using Faker for unit testing, you will often want to generate the same
data set. For convenience, the generator also provide a seed()
method, which
seeds the shared random number generator. Calling the same methods with the
same version of faker and seed produces the same results.
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()
fake.seed(4321)
print(fake.name())
# 'Margaret Boehm'
Each generator can also be switched to its own instance of random.Random
,
separate to the shared one, by using the seed_instance()
method, which acts
the same way. For example:
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()
fake.seed_instance(4321)
print(fake.name())
# 'Margaret Boehm'
Please note that as we keep updating datasets, results are not guaranteed to be
consistent across patch versions. If you hardcode results in your test, make sure
you pinned the version of Faker
down to the patch number.
Contribute¶
Please see CONTRIBUTING.
Contents¶
- Providers
faker.providers.address
faker.providers.automotive
faker.providers.bank
faker.providers.barcode
faker.providers.color
faker.providers.company
faker.providers.credit_card
faker.providers.currency
faker.providers.date_time
faker.providers.file
faker.providers.geo
faker.providers.internet
faker.providers.isbn
faker.providers.job
faker.providers.lorem
faker.providers.misc
faker.providers.person
faker.providers.phone_number
faker.providers.profile
faker.providers.python
faker.providers.ssn
faker.providers.user_agent
- Community Providers
- Locales
- Language ar_AA
- Language ar_EG
- Language ar_JO
- Language ar_PS
- Language ar_SA
- Language bg_BG
- Language bs_BA
- Language cs_CZ
- Language de
- Language de_AT
- Language de_CH
- Language de_DE
- Language dk_DK
- Language el_CY
- Language el_GR
- Language en
- Language en_AU
- Language en_CA
- Language en_GB
- Language en_IE
- Language en_NZ
- Language en_TH
- Language en_US
- Language es
- Language es_CA
- Language es_ES
- Language es_MX
- Language et_EE
- Language fa_IR
- Language fi_FI
- Language fr_CH
- Language fr_FR
- Language he_IL
- Language hi_IN
- Language hr_HR
- Language hu_HU
- Language hy_AM
- Language id_ID
- Language it_IT
- Language ja_JP
- Language ka_GE
- Language ko_KR
- Language la
- Language lb_LU
- Language lt_LT
- Language lv_LV
- Language mt_MT
- Language ne_NP
- Language nl_BE
- Language nl_NL
- Language no_NO
- Language pl_PL
- Language pt_BR
- Language pt_PT
- Language ro_RO
- Language ru_RU
- Language sk_SK
- Language sl_SI
- Language sv_SE
- Language th_TH
- Language tr_TR
- Language tw_GH
- Language uk_UA
- Language zh_CN
- Language zh_TW
- Coding Style