How do I preload imports into Django's manage.py shell command?

Question

When I run manage.py shell on my Django project to take a peek at something there are common imports that I always want to run at the start of the shell (e.g. I always want to import my model files.) How can I have these run automatically everytime I run the shell command?

2nd related question, when I hit the up arrow I get the "^A" character instead of the previously run command in the manage.py shell (and in my regular python shell), how can I fix this so it loads the previous command like on the Linux/Unix command line?

Steffi

Answer 1

For the first question, look at the manage.py shell_plus command provided by the django-extensions project. It will load all your model files on shell startup. The project has got a whole load of other useful tricks too, so it's definitely worth checking out.

For the second question, I can only guess that you need to install readline.

Luminance

Answer 2

you can replicate what

python manage.py shell

does by just doing:

from django.core.management import setup_environ
from mysite import settings
setup_environ(settings)

and you will have the environment all set up for the rest of that script. There are some other ways to do this here too: http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2007/sep/22/standalone-django-scripts/

Misspell

In my case, 'ImportError: cannot import name 'setup_environ' shows to me – Ethiopian

Answer 3

One single thing which can solve both of your problem is ipython. ipython stores the previous executions and it can give you completion as well.

Hiphuggers

Saving history doesn't solve the first problem when you are constantly running on a new instance (e.g., heroku), whereas shell_plus does. – Amp

Answer 4

Auto importing frequently used packages in python manage.py shell_plus

Example:

#  local_settings
SHELL_PLUS_PRE_IMPORTS = (
    ('<app_name>.models', '*'),
    ('<app_name>.forms', '*'),
    ('<app_name>.views', '*'),
    ('django.core.urlresolvers', '*'),
    ('django.db', 'connection'),
    ('django.db', 'reset_queries'),
)

SHELL_PLUS_DONT_LOAD = ['<app_name>', '<app_name>']

Reference:
https://github.com/django-extensions/django-extensions/blob/master/docs/shell_plus.rst

Mcniel

Answer 5

Adding extra stuff to the django shell can be done using as a starting point the shell_plus command provided in the django-extesions app, and modifying it by adding whatever you want to make available to the 'imported_objects' dictionary.

Eg if you duplicate the shell_plus.py file and add these two lines at the end:

# .......
alist = range(1000)
imported_objects['alist'] = alist
code.interact(local=imported_objects)  # <-- this is the original final line

When you run the shell using the new file the 'alist' reference will be available. I put a longer example here: http://www.michelepasin.org/techblog/?p=1012

Superstar