To dump data:

python manage.py dumpdata app.model_name --indent 4 > fixtures/model_name.json

To load data:

python manage.py loaddata fixtures/model_name.json --app app.model_name

–indent X is optional.

You must create a directory in your app named fixtures and put your fixtures files there.

You can write them in json or xml, one easy way to make them is to create some objects in the admin interface and then run manage.py dumpdata. That would dump the data from the objects you created into fixture files. After that you could simply edit those files to suit them to your needs.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/django-admin/#dumpdata-app-label-app-label-app-label-model

If you want to load the fixtures you use manage.py loaddata.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/django-admin/#loaddata-fixture-fixture

You can have fixtures with initial data that would be automatically loaded when you run syncdb, just create a file named initial_data and Django would recognize it.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/howto/initial-data/#automatically-loading-initial-data-fixtures

To use fixtures for testing purposes you must declare them in your test class

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/topics/testing/tools/#fixture-loading

I landed here looking how to do fixtures. I found the following article to be the easiest.

https://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/Fixtures

Add the FIXTURE_DIRS path to your apps’s settings.py.

import os
PROJECT_DIR = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
FIXTURE_DIRS = (
   os.path.join(PROJECT_DIR, 'fixtures'),
)

Now dump your current myapp state into a JSON file.

python manage.py dumpdata --format=json myapp > myapp/fixtures/initial_data.json

Thats it, time to test. Drop myapp tables…

./manage.py sqlclear myapp | ./manage.py dbshell

Now re-load the fixtures now…

./manage.py syncdb 

If you want to dump the entire site, you don’t need to specify a fixtures dir in the settings, you can make a fixtures dir in your project and run this

python manage.py dumpdata --format=json > /full-path-to-my-project/fixtures/initial_data.json

I’m currently writing a django module (django-generate_fixtures) to generate clever fixtures, following every related models of one parent object.

It dumps the data as JSON right now, then you can load it the same way as any other fixtures.