How to set a Django model field's default value to a function call / callable (e.g., a date relative to the time of model object creation)

Question

EDITED:

How can I set a Django field's default to a function that gets evaluated each time a new model object gets created?

I want to do something like the following, except that in this code, the code gets evaluated once and sets the default to the same date for each model object created, rather than evaluating the code each time a model object gets created:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
class MyModel(models.Model):
  # default to 1 day from now
  my_date = models.DateTimeField(default=datetime.now() + timedelta(days=1))

ORIGINAL:

I want to create a default value for a function parameter such that it is dynamic and gets called and set each time the function is called. How can I do that? e.g.,

from datetime import datetime
def mydate(date=datetime.now()):
  print date

mydate() 
mydate() # prints the same thing as the previous call; but I want it to be a newer value

Specifically, I want to do it in Django, e.g.,

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
class MyModel(models.Model):
  # default to 1 day from now
  my_date = models.DateTimeField(default=datetime.now() + timedelta(days=1))

Answer 1

The question is misguided. When creating a model field in Django, you are not defining a function, so function default values are irrelevant:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
class MyModel(models.Model):
  # default to 1 day from now
  my_date = models.DateTimeField(default=datetime.now() + timedelta(days=1))

This last line is not defining a function; it is invoking a function to create a field in the class.

PRE Django 1.7

Django lets you pass a callable as the default, and it will invoke it each time, just as you want:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
class MyModel(models.Model):
  # default to 1 day from now
  my_date = models.DateTimeField(default=lambda: datetime.now() + timedelta(days=1))

Django 1.7+

Please note that since Django 1.7, usage of lambda as default value is not recommended (c.f. @stvnw comment). The proper way to do this is to declare a function before the field and use it as a callable in default_value named arg:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

# default to 1 day from now
def get_default_my_date():
  return datetime.now() + timedelta(days=1)

class MyModel(models.Model):
  my_date = models.DateTimeField(default=get_default_my_date)

More information in the @simanas answer below