import django models classes into utility module

Question

I have two model classes in my models.py module in the default location.

PythonFinal
    |_   manage.py
    |_  template
    |_ PythonFinal
    |       |_  __init__.py
    |       |_  settings.py
    |       |_  urls.py
    |       |_  swgi.py
    | 
    |      
    |___ fertility
            |_  __init__.py
            |_  models.py
            |_  tests.py
            |_  views.py
            |_  dateUtils.py

I simply want to import the classes into dateUtils.py

from fertility.models import Cycle, Period

if __name__ == '__main__':
    p1 = Period(periodFirstDay='2012-7-26' , periodNumber=4)

If I run this module I get

ImportError: no module named fertility

If I try to import models from the python commandline I get

import models    
Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
      File "models.py", line 1, in <module>
        from django.db import models
      File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/__init__.py", line 11, in <module>
        if DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS not in settings.DATABASES:
      File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 184, in inner
        self._setup()
      File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 40, in _setup
        raise ImportError("Settings cannot be imported, because environment variable %s is undefined." % ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE)
    ImportError: Settings cannot be imported, because environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE is undefined.

I added my projects root folder to the PYTHONPATH in ~/.bashrc. My wsgi.py reads

import os
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "PythonFinal.settings")

I do not think it is not a circular import because I get the ImportError instead of a NamingError, and I simply don't have many imports yet. For obvious reasons I need to be able to import my model to other modules I can unit test or I need another simple workflow that accomplishes the same.

To use models from the commandline, you should **always** start the shell using `./manage.py shell` rather than going into Python directly. That will avoid the issues with DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE. — Daniel Roseman, Jul 28 '12 at 22:31
that yielded... >>> import fertility.dateUtils.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in File "/home/jeremy/PythonFinal/fertility/dateUtils.py", line 12, in from PythonFinal.fertility.models import Cycle, Period ImportError: No module named fertility.models — jeremyjjbrown, Jul 28 '12 at 23:04

thebjorn · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-29T20:07:32.343

2

If PythonFinal is in /home/users/jeremy/django/PythonFinal, then /home/users/jeremy/django should be in your PYTHONPATH environment variable, and DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE should be set to "PythonFinal.PythonFinal.settings". Then you can use

from PythonFinal.fertility.models import Cycle, Period

from the Python command line.

It is, however, more common to have the settings.py file in the same folder as manage.py, and a number of tools and tutorials expect this setup...

edited Jul 29 '12 at 20:07

answered Jul 28 '12 at 22:03

thebjorn

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I added those values to ~/.bashrc and sourced it, now I just get ImportError: No module named MySiteDir.fertility.models – jeremyjjbrown Jul 28 '12 at 23:10
Can you update your question with the real directory structure? – thebjorn Jul 29 '12 at 13:23
Is it more common to have settings.py and manage.py in the same folder in older versions of Django? I used 1.4 and followed the Djangoproject.com First steps tutorial and I set up the directories per the instructions. – jeremyjjbrown Jul 30 '12 at 02:08

import django models classes into utility module

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