Can I safely delete Django's empty init files?

Question

I have many __init__.py files in my Django project and apps folder,

I think most were generated by Django when I initialised my project and its apps

I have seen in How do I delete DB (sqlite3) in Django 1.9 to start from scratch? that apparently we shouldn't delete the __init__.py file in the migration folders.

Can I delete the others, empty __init__.py files ? It s just that they kind of clutter the directory tree, so if they are useless I would rather remove them.

Edit : I just tried and deleted them and I didn t see any changes to the functionnalities of my website, everything worked fine. But as others pointed out they are definitely not useless so I ll leave them be.

Short answer, don't. Long answer – Vaibhav Vishal Mar 28 '19 at 07:30 — Vaibhav Vishal, Mar 28 '19 at 07:30

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 28 '19 at 08:25

5

Basically the __init__.py file makes Python treat directories containing it as modules.

So by deleting that file Django doesn't treat it as a module and it will stop working.

So it is bad idea to delete those files.

edited Mar 28 '19 at 08:25

cezar

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answered Mar 28 '19 at 07:29

rahul.m

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I tried, deleted them all and saw no change whatsoever in the functionnalities of my website. But as you pointed out they are not useless so I ll leave them where they are. – Eli O. Mar 28 '19 at 07:38
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Well, it depends on version of `Python` You're using. Newer `Python` versions do NOT require `__init__.py` file in order to recognize modules. – Fejs Mar 28 '19 at 07:43

Can I safely delete Django's empty __init__ files?

1 Answers1

Can I safely delete Django's empty init files?