BASE_DIR output within a subfolder, DJANGO

Question

Ever since I changed my settings.py file to be in 3 different files (ie base, local and production) within a subfolder 'settings', BASE_DIR will not display the path to project correctly.

What I want BASE_DIR to output is the following:

`PathToProject/Projectname`

what I am getting (since I moved BASE_DIR in base.py within 'settings' subfolder:

PathToProject/Projectname/Projectname

It bothers me because now it's looking for static folder within Projectname/Projectname instead of Projectname

How could I properly configure BASE_DIR function to give me the correct path to project?

Answer 1

About having several custom settings.py files :

I suggest you to keep your default main settings.py and make custom ones aside if you need some.

If you need to derivate it, make other settings.py files for instance for your preproduction version. make your preprod-settings.py like this, in the same directory that settings.py :

from .settings import *

DEBUG = False # <-- just add some settings or override the previous ones like this.

This way all your main settings are in the main file, and you only need to put what you want to change in your custom settings files. You'll then be able to change what settings file to use with the manage.py 's --settings option, or by modifying (or make a custom one) wsgi.py file in production, with for instance :

import os, sys
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "myproject.mycustomsettingsfile")
SETTINGS_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)
PROJECT_PATH = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(SETTINGS_DIR, os.pardir))
sys.path.append(PROJECT_PATH)
application = get_wsgi_application()

How BASE_DIR (should) works :

When creating your project, BASE_DIR 's default value is :

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))

which means :

"BASE_DIR is the parent folder of the parent folder of the file this line is in (settings.py).".

os.path.dirname() gives the parent folder path, and os.path.abspath() the absolute path (you need it to give os.path.dirname() enough informations to get the parent dirnames).

Since BASE_DIR 's value is computed each time you run your server, and since this valus simply depends of the settings.py location, you don't need custom values for several locations or cases :

You move your project --> BASE_DIR automatically changes.

"But what if I move my settings.py?"

If you move your settings.py file, you may have to change the BASE_DIR value : for instance, if you move it deeper, just add a os.path.dirname to your BASE_DIR assignation.

NB : if you want to choose what project to run amongst several subprojects (it seems weird to me though, I'm not sure I understood well. It could ever be wrong, feel free to describe what you want to achieve and why, maybe we could suggest a better way), you could still override the BASE_DIR value in your custom settings.py files.