Reusable Django Packages/Apps

Overview

Notes on workflow and best practices for creating and maintaining reusable packages/apps in Django.

Packaging an app

The properties of the project are defined in setup.py in the project root directory.

This file in turn reads properties such as author and version from __init__.py in the root of the app itself.

Version is used to name the package, and is embedded as metadata to allow installation of updates to the pacakge.

$ cd /path/to/app/source/dir/
$ python setup.py sdist

Distribution

Packages need to be available somewhere public in order for use in deployed web apps.

Amazon S3

Upload through web browser

• Open the Amazon S3 console.
• Click on the bucket where the packages are stored, then click Upload.
• Either drag the package files onto the page, or click Add Files.

Upload on command line

Requires aws cli.

View contents of a bucket:

$ aws s3 ls <bucket-name>

Use s3 mv, s3 cp, s3 sync, and s3 rm to manage files in the bucket.

For example, to copy a new package to the S3 bucket:

$ aws s3 cp ./my-django-pkg-0.0.1.tar.gz s3://my-bucket/path --acl public-read

Installing, uninstalling, and updating apps

$ pip uninstall django-addresses
$ pip install ~/develop/labs/shared/django-addresses/dist/django-addresses-1.2.1.tar.gz

Make sure to take at all the versions stored in the dist directory to confirm that the latest version is being installed, i.e. don't assume that there is only one version stored there.

Using an app in a Django project

Add the app name under INSTALLED_APPS in the project's settings.py file.

# my_project/settings.py

# ...

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiels',
    'contact_info',
)

Confirming the version of an installed app

Use the pip show command, e.g.:

$ pip show django-contact_info

Notes

See also

• Refactoring a Django App as a Stand-Alone Module