Why does using os.environ in settings cause Django not to run?

Question

I'm running Django 1.5.1. In my settings.py file, I have:

import os, dj_database_url

# ...

DATABASES = {
    'default': dj_database_url.config(default=os.environ['DATABASE_URL']),
    'mongodb': dj_database_url.config(default=os.environ['MONGO_URL']),
}

And I have a local settings file with:

os.environ['DATABASE_URL'] = 'mysql://root@localhost/my-database'

When I try to run python manage.py runserver --settings=foo.local_settings , it throws Unknown command: 'runserver' . If I take out the os.environ parts, though, it works.

I can't figure what's going on; does anyone have any ideas? Also, if there is a better way to approach what I'm doing - that is, offload the environment settings to local values - please let me know. Thanks!

Answer 1

See my comment to Guandalino. Basically I had local_settings.py doing from settings import * , which in turn was throwing an error that os.environ['DATABASE_URL'] was not yet set. I moved the import line under the rest of the stuff in local_settings.py, and now it works.