
Creating app configuration
When developing a website with Django, you create one module for the project itself and then, multiple Python modules called applications or apps that combine the different modular functionalities and usually consist of models, views, forms, URL configurations, management commands, migrations, signals, tests, and so on. The Django framework has application registry, where all apps and models are collected and later used for configuration and introspection. Since Django 1.7, meta information about apps can be saved in the AppConfig
instance for each used app. Let's create a sample magazine
app to take a look at how to use the app configuration there.
Getting ready
Either create your Django app manually or using this command in your virtual environment (learn how to use virtual environments in the Working with a virtual environment recipe), as follows:
(myproject_env)$ django-admin.py startapp magazine
Add some NewsArticle
model to models.py
, create administration for the model in admin.py
, and put "magazine"
in INSTALLED_APPS
in the settings. If you are not yet familiar with these tasks, study the official Django tutorial at https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/intro/tutorial01/.
How to do it…
Follow these steps to create and use the app configuration:
- First of all, create the
apps.py
file and put this content in it, as follows:# magazine/apps.py # -*- coding: UTF-8 -*- from __future__ import unicode_literals from django.apps import AppConfig from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _ class MagazineAppConfig(AppConfig): name = "magazine" verbose_name = _("Magazine") def ready(self): from . import signals
- Then, edit the
__init__.py
file of the app and put the following content:# magazine/__init__.py # -*- coding: UTF-8 -*- from __future__ import unicode_literals default_app_config = "magazine.apps.MagazineAppConfig"
- Lastly, let's create a
signals.py
file and add some signal handlers there:# magazine/signals.py # -*- coding: UTF-8 -*- from __future__ import unicode_literals from django.db.models.signals import post_save, post_delete from django.dispatch import receiver from django.conf import settings from .models import NewsArticle @receiver(post_save, sender=NewsArticle) def news_save_handler(sender, **kwargs): if settings.DEBUG: print("%s saved." % kwargs['instance']) @receiver(post_delete, sender=NewsArticle) def news_delete_handler(sender, **kwargs): if settings.DEBUG: print("%s deleted." % kwargs['instance'])
How it works…
When you run an HTTP server or invoke a management command, django.setup()
is called. It loads the settings, sets up logging, and initializes app registry. The app registry is initialized in three steps, as shown in the following:
- Django imports the configurations for each item from
INSTALLED_APPS
in the settings. These items can point to app names or configuration directly, for example,"magazine"
or"magazine.apps.NewsAppConfig"
. - Django tries to import
models.py
from each app inINSTALLED_APPS
and collect all the models. - Finally, Django runs the
ready()
method for each app configuration. This method is a correct place to register signal handlers, if you have any. Theready()
method is optional. - In our example, the
MagazineAppConfig
class sets the configuration for themagazine
app. Thename
parameter defines the name of the current app. Theverbose_name
parameter is used in the Django model administration, where models are presented and grouped by apps. Theready()
method imports and activates the signal handlers that, when in DEBUG mode, print in the terminal that aNewsArticle
was saved or deleted.
There is more…
After calling django.setup()
, you can load the app configurations and models from the registry as follows:
>>> from django.apps import apps as django_apps >>> magazine_app_config = django_apps.get_app_config("magazine") >>> magazine_app_config <MagazineAppConfig: magazine> >>> magazine_app_config.models_module <module 'magazine.models' from 'magazine/models.pyc'> NewsArticle = django_apps.get_model("magazine", "NewsArticle")
You can read more about app configuration in the official Django documentation at https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/applications/
See also
- The Working with a virtual environment recipe
- The Defining overwritable app settings recipe
- Chapter 6, Model Administration