environment variable for django settings?

Question

I've been using Django for over a year and have never needed to 'define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE as I am asked to do in the following error message:

E
======================================================================
ERROR: setUpClass (__main__.SmokeTest)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\test\testcases.py", line 1026, in setUpClass
    if not connections_support_transactions():
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\test\testcases.py", line 991, in connections_support_transactions
    for conn in connections.all())
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\db\utils.py", line 227, in all
    return [self[alias] for alias in self]
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\db\utils.py", line 224, in __iter__
    return iter(self.databases)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\utils\functional.py", line 33, in __get__
    res = instance.__dict__[self.name] = self.func(instance)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\db\utils.py", line 157, in databases
    self._databases = settings.DATABASES
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\conf\__init__.py", line 55, in __getattr__
    self._setup(name)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\conf\__init__.py", line 41, in _setup
    % (desc, ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE))
ImproperlyConfigured: Requested setting DATABASES, but settings are not configured. You must either define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure() before accessing settings.

I am using Windows command line.

I tried running

from django.conf import settings

settings.configure()

as explained here, but this didn't help.

Does anyone know how to get this to work?

Do you have these DB settings in your settings.py? And also, were you using an OS other than windows and loading your settings from a .env file? — Mukund Gandlur, Jun 17 '16 at 11:35
@MukundGandlur I have the default sqlite in my settings.py, haven't altered it. I've been using windows the whole time. — David J., Jun 17 '16 at 11:40
@brunodesthuilliers in the command line I am in my app directory, I run python tests.py — David J., Jun 17 '16 at 12:01

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 17 '16 at 11:32

1

Are you sure in your manage.py have something like this

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "projectname.settings")

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/django-admin/

answered Jun 17 '16 at 11:32

Wiriya Rungruang

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Yes I certainly do – David J. Jun 17 '16 at 11:35
I see from your comment on your question if you want to do like that should read this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16853649/executing-python-script-from-django-shell – Wiriya Rungruang Jun 17 '16 at 12:08

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 17 '16 at 12:33

"@brunodesthuilliers in the command line I am in my app directory, I run python tests.py "

Well that's not going to work (at least not that easily). Why don't you just use the builtin management "test" command ?

 #> cd your/project/root 
 #> python manage.py test

cf https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/testing/

environment variable for django settings?

2 Answers2