Django Cookiecutter : package folder not found - python

I have created a Django Project usin the cookiecutter project.
On this project I have installed django-simple-poll.
All is going fine, not error message; the poll Model appears in the admin.
But, there is not folder for the 'poll' app in my project.
I presume that installing the package should create a folder for this new app with template subfolder and all the usual stuff.
Am I missing something?

Yes, you do miss something. Only your own packages are usually located in your project folder.
When you install a package using pip the sources get downloaded into a so called environment. By default when you run pip as root it is located somewhere in your OS. The exact place differs depending on your OS and the python version used.
There is a software called virtualenv that allows you to create python environments on purpose (e.g. per project). I would strongly recommend using it.
You can also grab the package sources and place them directly in your project folder, if you want to. But this is not the intended way to go.
All this is possible, because python when it starts reads the PYTHONPATH and whenever you import a package it searches in all this directories.
You can check which paths are set using sys.path
import sys
print(sys.path)
You can even add your own paths on runtime if necessary, but usually it is not.

Related

Import forked module in Python instead of installed module

I would like to make changes (and possibly contribute if its any good) to a public project on GitHub. I've forked and cloned the module but Im unclear how to get my program to import the local library instead of the 'official' installed module.
I tried cloning it into my project folder but when I imported it and tried to use it things got weird calmap\calmap.plot()
I also tried doing sys.path.append and the folder location. But it seems to still import the official one instead of the forked.
I'm assuming that I could put my program inside the module folder so that module would be found first but I can't image thats the 'correct' way to do it.
|
|-->My_Project_Folder/
|
|-->Forked_Module/
|-->docs/
|-->Forked_Module/
|-->__init__.py
If you're already using anaconda, then you can create a new environment just for the development of this feature.
First, create a new environment:
# develop_lib is the name of the environment.
# You can pick anything that is memorable instead.
# You can also use whatever python version you require ...
conda create -n develop_lib python3.5
Once you have the environment, then you probably want to enter that environment in your current session:
source activate develop_lib
Ok, now that you have the environment set up, you'll probably need to install some requirements for whatever third party library you're developing. I don't know what those dependencies are, but you can install them in your environment using conda install (if they're available) or using pip. Now you're ready to start working with the library that you want to update. python setup.py develop should be available assuming that the package has a standard build process. After you've run that, things should be good to go. You can make changes, run tests, etc.
If you use sys.path.append() the new "path" will be used if none of the previous contains the module you are importing. If you want that the "added path" has precedence over all the older, you have to use
sys.path.insert(0, "path")
In this way, if you print the sys.path you will see that the added path is at the beginning of the list and the module you are importing will be loaded from the path you have specified.
to import from the forked repo instead of python package you should
make a virtual environment for the cloned project then activate it, that way the environment is isolated from the globally installed packages.
1- you need to fork your repo;
2- create a virtual env and activate it;
3- clone your repo.
now if you print your import you will see the path of the forked repo.
import any_module
print(any_module)

Changing Python Packages Path for Django Application

I'm currently hosting with a dreamhost shared VPS. I do not have sudo rights. I want to install django packages but I cannot to /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ because python is root access only. I have setup a directory in my user directory also called dist-packages to which I have copied all my packages to. I want to use the packages in the dist-packages directory I created to build my django app. Is possible to use my packages? I'm looking for a work around. I do have virtual python env installed, is there a way to use it maybe?
Python 2.7
Django 1.9
My current setup
/home/myuser/mydomain.com/
env/
myApp/
passenger_wsgi.py
public/
How do I setup the env?
You should be using virtualenv for sure(I'm surprised that you are still looking for a work around). It's really inconvenient to use default python for everything. virtualenv will create an isolated python directory of your choice and install everything in there. When you want to use it, just "activate" it then you are automagically in that python environment.
It's almost trivial to learn how to create one, you can even create as many as you like, each with different packages installed. Check their doc for more details.

How to switch between test code and production code in python?

I have a project that is constantly undergoing development. I have installed a release of the project in my python distribution's site-packages directory using the setup.py script for the project.
However, when I make changes to the project I would like my test scripts to find the files that are under the project's directory and not those that it finds in site-packages. What is the proper way to do this? I only know of one approach which is to modify the search path in the test script itself using sys.path, but then it means that I cannot use the same scripts to test the "installed" version of my codes without editing the sys.path again.
I'm not quite sure what you are asking but you could use
python setup.py develop to create a develop version of your project
https://pythonhosted.org/setuptools/setuptools.html#development-mode
Under normal circumstances, the distutils assume that you are going to
build a distribution of your project, not use it in its “raw” or
“unbuilt” form. If you were to use the distutils that way, you would
have to rebuild and reinstall your project every time you made a
change to it during development.
Another problem that sometimes comes up with the distutils is that you
may need to do development on two related projects at the same time.
You may need to put both projects’ packages in the same directory to
run them, but need to keep them separate for revision control
purposes. How can you do this?
Setuptools allows you to deploy your projects for use in a common
directory or staging area, but without copying any files. Thus, you
can edit each project’s code in its checkout directory, and only need
to run build commands when you change a project’s C extensions or
similarly compiled files. You can even deploy a project into another
project’s checkout directory, if that’s your preferred way of working
(as opposed to using a common independent staging area or the
site-packages directory).
Use "Editable" package installation like:
pip install -e path/to/SomeProject
Assuming we are in the same directory with setup.py, the command will be:
pip install -e .

Python: using downloaded modules

I am new to Python and mostly used my own code. But so now I downloaded a package that I need for some problem I have.
Example structure:
root\
externals\
__init__.py
cowfactory\
__init__.py
cow.py
milk.py
kittens.py
Now the cowfactory's __init__.py does from cowfactory import cow. This gives an import error.
I could fix it and change the import statement to from externals.cowfactory import cow but something tells me that there is an easier way since it's not very practical.
An other fix could be to put the cowfactory package in the root of my project but that's not very tidy either.
I think I have to do something with the __init__.py file in the externals directory but I am not sure what.
Inside the cowfactory package, relative imports should be used such as from . import cow. The __init__.py file in externals is not necessary. Assuming that your project lies in root\ and cowfactory is the external package you downloaded, you can do it in two different ways:
Install the external module
External Python packages usually come with a file "setup.py" that allows you to install it. On Windows, it would be the command "setup.py bdist_wininst" and you get a EXE installer in the "dist" directory (if it builds correctly). Use that installer and the package will be installed in the Python installation directory. Afterwards, you can simply do an import cowfactory just like you would do import os.
If you have pip or easy_install installed: Many external packages can be installed with them (pip even allows easy uninstallation).
Use PYTHONPATH for development
If you want to keep all dependencies together in your project directory, then keep all external packages in the externals\ folder and add the folder to the PYTHONPATH. If you're using the command line, you can create a batch file containing something like
set PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%:externals
yourprogram.py
I'm actually doing something similar, but using PyDev+Eclipse. There, you can change the "Run configurations" to include the environment variable PYTHONPATH with the value "externals". After the environment variable is set, you can simply import cowfactory in your own modules. Note how that is better than from external import cowfactory because in the latter case, it wouldn't work anymore once you install your project (or you'd have to install all external dependencies as a package called "external" which is a bad idea).
Same solutions of course apply to Linux, as well, but with different commands.
generally, you would use easy_install our pip to install it for you in the appropriate directory. There is a site-packages directory on windows where you can put the package if you can't use easy_install for some reason. On ubuntu, it's /usr/lib/pythonX.Y/dist-packages. Google for your particular system. Or you can put it anywhere on your PYTHONPATH environment variable.
As a general rule, it's good to not put third party libs in your programs directory structure (although there are differing opinions on this vis a vis source control). This keeps your directory structure as minimalist as possible.
The easiest way is to use the enviroment variable $PYTHONPATH. You set it before running your scripts as follows:
export $PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/root/externals/
You can add as many folders as you want (provided their separate by :) and python will look in all those folders when importing.

virtualenv on Windows: not over-riding installed package

My current setup is Python 2.5/ Django 1.1.1 on Windows. I want to start using Django 1.2 on some projects, but can't use it for everything. Which is just the sort of thing I've got virtualenv for. However, I'm running into a problem I've never encountered and it's hard to Google for: installing Django 1.2 into a virtualenv has no effect for me. If I then activate the environment and do
python
import django
django.VERSION
I get "1.1.1 Final". Django is installed in the site-packages directory of my environment and the init file in the root shows that it is 1.2. But the environment falls back to 1.1.1, even if I create the environment with the --no-site-packages flag. What am I screwing up?
Based on the bug you filed at bitbucket, it looks like you're using the PYTHONPATH environment variable to point to a directory with some packages, including Django 1.1.1. By design, PYTHONPATH always comes first in your sys.path, even when you have a virtualenv activated (because PYTHONPATH is under your direct and immediate control, and people use it for local overrides).
In this case, if you don't want that PYTHONPATH when this virtualenv is activated, you'll need to take care of that yourself; perhaps by creating a custom batch file that both calls the virtualenv's activate.bat and also modifies PYTHONPATH.
Some tools you can use to diagnose these problems:
To see where django is coming from, print django.__file__. It will show the file indicating django's location on the file system.
To see all the places Python will look for packages, print sys.path. It's a list of directories.
To see imports as they happen, start python as python -v, and you'll see lots of debugging information about where packages are being imported.

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