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I just started up with django.

Following this tutorial, I ended up with the following urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    path('polls/', include('polls.urls')),
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
]

This links to polls.urls.py which has its own router.

The part I don't like is the string literal 'polls.urls' which is, well... a string literal.

I would like to somehow reference the file directly using some of python's power, and have AT LEAST my IDE protect me.

What happens if I want to move that polls.urls.py file, or rename it, or rename polls? Should I trust my IDE to catch a reference from a string literal?

This is almost like doing this monstrosity, and is very hard for me to accept as the best practice.

It just seems odd to me.

Is there a way to use something less prone to errors than string literals in django's routers?

Gulzar
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    How often do you rename an app, or rename your app's urlconf file to something else than "urls.py" ? And in the very rare occasions where you rename an app, how likely is it that you forget to update your main urlconf accordingly - specially since you'd then get an import error ? Oh and yes: dynamic imports are not a monstruosity, they are a very useful feature when you need it. – bruno desthuilliers Apr 16 '20 at 12:20
  • @brunodesthuilliers I gave this example, but I see this happen in other places in django as well. I think dynamic imports in places where they can be static, are bad. Maybe they can't be static, but I really don't see why that is the case. – Gulzar Apr 16 '20 at 12:41
  • Of course you shouldn't use dynamic imports where you can use static ones, we totally agree on this. Now Django's initialization process is quite complex (that's part of the price for all the features provided), with lot of dependencies to handle. Using static imports in settings (and in the main urlconf) would make it impossible for Django to make sure everything is imported in the correct order. Django is of course not perfect, but it's globally a rather well designed and well written piece of software, so be sure there are valid reasons for those choices. – bruno desthuilliers Apr 16 '20 at 14:09

2 Answers2

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I don't see problems with using string literals as URLconf is loaded prior to starting of server (runserver)

If there is a problem you would get ModuleNotFound error

From source of include() :

if isinstance(urlconf_module, six.string_types):
    urlconf_module = import_module(urlconf_module)

You would see good amount of import_module usage through Django framework and string literals.

Your IDE would know if there is unresolved reference (Pycharm does)

iklinac
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So from what I understand or what I know there are two ways of url mapping using the path' orurl`

for path method you bound to do what you did that is:

from django.urls import path, include

but you are to also import your views.py

For second method your are to:

from django.conf.urls import url

then your are to import your views there as: from .views import home_page home_page being a function or class in your views.py

Example of mapping url(r'^home/$', home_page),

so no need to actually to actually create urls.py if you use this method