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.
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For more details, see the extended docs.
Install with pip:
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)
.
Each of the generator properties (like name
, address
, and lorem
) are called "fake". A faker generator has many of them, packaged in "providers".
Check the extended docs for a list of bundled providers and a list of community providers.
faker.Factory
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.
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
- 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_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
- it_IT - Italian
- ja_JP - Japanese
- 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)
- ru_RU - Russian
- sl_SI - Slovene
- sv_SE - Swedish
- tr_TR - Turkish
- uk_UA - Ukrainian
- zh_CN - Chinese (China)
- zh_TW - Chinese (Taiwan)
When installed, you can invoke faker from the command-line:
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 module 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:
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
class MyProvider(BaseProvider):
def foo(self):
return 'bar'
# then add new provider to faker instance
fake.add_provider(MyProvider)
# now you can use:
fake.foo()
> 'bar'
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.'
Factory Boy already ships with integration with Faker
. Simply use the factory.Faker
method of factory_boy
:
The .random
property on the generator returns the instance of random.Random
used to generate the values:
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.
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.
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:
Installing dependencies:
Run tests:
or
Write documentation for providers:
Please see CONTRIBUTING.
Faker is released under the MIT License. See the bundled LICENSE file for details.