Django, Python Modules, and Git Submodules

Question

I am working on a django project that has uses multiple applications (python modules). Most of those python modules are maintained by other people in their own git repositories. I use the git-submodules command to import them into my project under the 'apps' directory like so:

mysite/
mysite/apps
mysite/apps/django-extensions
mysite/apps/django-celery
mysite/apps/django-comments
mysite/apps/myapp
...etc

Most of those submodules (take django-extensions for example) have a subfolder containing the actual python module: mysite/apps/django-extensions/django_extensions

This means I can't simply set my python path to include mysite/apps--I have to set it to include mysite/apps/django-extensions so it can import the django_extensions subfolder.

It gets annoying typing:

PYTHONPATH=mysite/apps/django-extensions:mysite/apps/django-celery... python manage.py runserver

Is there an easier way I should be laying out my repo? An easier process? Just for fun, I tried a PYTHONPATH of mysite/apps/*, but that didn't work.

Answer 1

This is the wrong way to do it. Don't install other people's third-party code in your own project file. Instead, create a virtualenv, and install the code directly using pip .

Answer 2

After coming up blank on the internet, I hacked this solution together. It's straight forward and works well enough:

#At the top of settings.py
import sys, os
git_sub_modules = '/path/to/dir/containing/submodules' #Relative paths ok too
for dir in os.listdir(git_sub_modules):
    path = os.path.join(git_sub_modules, dir)
    if not path in sys.path:
        sys.path.append(path)

time passes

UPDATE: It's much easier to use a virtualenv and/or something like dokku for deploying apps. I no longer use this. Although it is still a pain to checkout 3rd party apps that need 'tweaks' and use them in the project.

Answer 3

You could tuck those paths in a dependencies.pth file, and only have the .pth in your path. There are examples in your site-packages / dist-packages.

Answer 4

Could you try checking out just the wanted part of the repository? So if they have the actual code inside of what you're checking out, don't check out the extra part.

So instead of getting django-extensions get django-extensions/django-extensions.

Edit: I believe this is what you could do above.

Also, I believe you could get away with adding an __init__.py in the first django-extensions directory, but then you're going to have to add an extra django-extensions to your imports as well (__init__.py tells python it is a package). While I think this might work, I would recommend shooting for my first example.