Django loading fixtures (not from installed apps) in tests

Question

Is there a way to load fixtures that do NOT reside in appname/fixtures? According to django docs, fixtures have to be in directory of INSTALLED_APPS

Answer 1

You can define additional locations to search for fixtures using the FIXTURE_DIRS setting: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#std:setting-FIXTURE_DIRS

Answer 2

Just had to programmatically call 'loaddata' using call_command. You can do it in setUp.

from django.test import TestCase
from django.core.management import call_command

class GlobalSetup(TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        # Manually calling loaddata to import fixures 
        # that are not in INSTALLED_APPS
        call_command('loaddata', 'cur_dir/fixtures_name', verbosity=0)