Problem in importing User models

Question

I am doing some tests in a Django project. I created a very simple module just for testing. Below:

from django.contrib.auth.models import User

def teste():
    for i in User.objects.all():
        print i.username

if __name__ == "__main__":
    teste()

When executing the code, this error is returned:

Traceback (Most recent call last): File "test.py", line 6, in from Django.contrib.auth.models import User File "/home/carlos/myworkspace/Helpdesk/lib/python2.7/site-Packages/Django /contrib/auth/init.py", line 6, in from Django.middleware.csrf import rotate_token File "/home/carlos/myworkspace/Helpdesk/lib/python2.7/site-Packages/Django /middleware/csrf.py", line 14, in from Django.utils.cache import patch_vary_headers File "/home/carlos/myworkspace/Helpdesk/lib/python2.7/site-Packages/Django/utils/cache.py", line 26, in from Django.core.cache import get_cache File "/home/carlos/myworkspace/Helpdesk/lib/python2.7/site-Packages/Django/core/cache/init.py", line 69, in if DEFAULT_CACHE_ALIAS not in Settings.CACHES: File "/home/carlos/myworkspace/Helpdesk/lib/python2.7/site-Packages/Django/conf/init.py", line 54, in getattr self. _setup(name) File "/home/carlos/myworkspace/Helpdesk/lib/python2.7/site-Packages/Django/conf/init.py", line 47, in _setup % (desc, ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE)) Django.core.exceptions.Improperlyconfigured: Requested Setting CACHES, but Settings are not configured. You must either define the Environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call Settings.configure() before accessing Settings.

NOTE: Inside the python manage.py shell with the %run test.py command, the code works.

Answer 1

This is not the "common" way to run a project with Django, but if you just want to solve the problem in question, the solution is to set the variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE.

When you turn the command by python manage.py shell, this variable is set automatically, which causes in this case the error does not occur.

To set the variable manually, you can put the following code at the beginning of your script:

import os
# estou considerando que o nome do projeto (e não o app!) seja "helpdesk"
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'helpdesk.settings' 

Another option is to set the variable in your shell instead of the code. So:

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=helpdesk.settings

In any case, I recommend that you do not do so. It is simpler and more reliable to use the manage.py, or make a code "traditional", using templates, views and templates.