DJANGO-ADMIN(1) Django DJANGO-ADMIN(1)NAMEdjango-admin - Utility script for the Django Web framework
django-admin is Django's command-line utility for administrative tasks.
This document outlines all it can do.
In addition, manage.py is automatically created in each Django project.
manage.py is a thin wrapper around django-admin that takes care of sev‐
eral things for you before delegating to django-admin:
· It puts your project's package on sys.path.
· It sets the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable so that it
points to your project's settings.py file.
· It calls django.setup() to initialize various internals of Django.
The django-admin script should be on your system path if you installed
Django via its setup.py utility. If it's not on your path, you can find
it in site-packages/django/bin within your Python installation. Con‐
sider symlinking it from some place on your path, such as
/usr/local/bin.
For Windows users, who do not have symlinking functionality available,
you can copy django-admin.exe to a location on your existing path or
edit the PATH settings (under Settings - Control Panel - System -
Advanced - Environment...) to point to its installed location.
Generally, when working on a single Django project, it's easier to use
manage.py than django-admin. If you need to switch between multiple
Django settings files, use django-admin with DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or
the --settings command line option.
The command-line examples throughout this document use django-admin to
be consistent, but any example can use manage.py just as well.
USAGE
$ django-admin <command> [options]
$ manage.py <command> [options]
command should be one of the commands listed in this document.
options, which is optional, should be zero or more of the options
available for the given command.
Getting runtime help
django-admin help
Run django-admin help to display usage information and a list of the
commands provided by each application.
Run django-admin help --commands to display a list of all available
commands.
Run django-admin help <command> to display a description of the given
command and a list of its available options.
App names
Many commands take a list of "app names." An "app name" is the basename
of the package containing your models. For example, if your
INSTALLED_APPS contains the string 'mysite.blog', the app name is blog.
Determining the version
django-admin version
Run django-admin version to display the current Django version.
The output follows the schema described in PEP 386:
1.4.dev17026
1.4a1
1.4
Displaying debug output
Use --verbosity to specify the amount of notification and debug infor‐
mation that django-admin should print to the console. For more details,
see the documentation for the --verbosity option.
AVAILABLE COMMANDS
check <appname appname ...>
django-admin check
Uses the system check framework to inspect the entire Django project
for common problems.
The system check framework will confirm that there aren't any problems
with your installed models or your admin registrations. It will also
provide warnings of common compatibility problems introduced by upgrad‐
ing Django to a new version. Custom checks may be introduced by other
libraries and applications.
By default, all apps will be checked. You can check a subset of apps by
providing a list of app labels as arguments:
python manage.py check auth admin myapp
If you do not specify any app, all apps will be checked.
--tag <tagname>
The system check framework performs many different types of checks.
These check types are categorized with tags. You can use these tags to
restrict the checks performed to just those in a particular category.
For example, to perform only security and compatibility checks, you
would run:
python manage.py check --tag security --tag compatibility
--list-tags
List all available tags.
--deploy
The --deploy option activates some additional checks that are only rel‐
evant in a deployment setting.
You can use this option in your local development environment, but
since your local development settings module may not have many of your
production settings, you will probably want to point the check command
at a different settings module, either by setting the DJANGO_SET‐
TINGS_MODULE environment variable, or by passing the --settings option:
python manage.py check --deploy --settings=production_settings
Or you could run it directly on a production or staging deployment to
verify that the correct settings are in use (omitting --settings). You
could even make it part of your integration test suite.
compilemessages
django-admin compilemessages
Compiles .po files created by makemessages to .mo files for use with
the builtin gettext support. See /topics/i18n/index.
Use the --locale option (or its shorter version -l) to specify the
locale(s) to process. If not provided, all locales are processed.
Use the --exclude option (or its shorter version -x) to specify the
locale(s) to exclude from processing. If not provided, no locales are
excluded.
You can pass --use-fuzzy option (or -f) to include fuzzy translations
into compiled files.
Added --exclude and --use-fuzzy options.
Example usage:
django-admin compilemessages --locale=pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages --locale=pt_BR --locale=fr -f
django-admin compilemessages -l pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages -l pt_BR -l fr --use-fuzzy
django-admin compilemessages --exclude=pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages --exclude=pt_BR --exclude=fr
django-admin compilemessages -x pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages -x pt_BR -x fr
createcachetable
django-admin createcachetable
Creates the cache tables for use with the database cache backend using
the information from your settings file. See /topics/cache for more
information.
The --database option can be used to specify the database onto which
the cache table will be installed, but since this information is pulled
from your settings by default, it's typically not needed.
dbshell
django-admin dbshell
Runs the command-line client for the database engine specified in your
ENGINE setting, with the connection parameters specified in your USER,
PASSWORD, etc., settings.
· For PostgreSQL, this runs the psql command-line client.
· For MySQL, this runs the mysql command-line client.
· For SQLite, this runs the sqlite3 command-line client.
This command assumes the programs are on your PATH so that a simple
call to the program name (psql, mysql, sqlite3) will find the program
in the right place. There's no way to specify the location of the pro‐
gram manually.
The --database option can be used to specify the database onto which to
open a shell.
diffsettings
django-admin diffsettings
Displays differences between the current settings file and Django's
default settings.
Settings that don't appear in the defaults are followed by "###". For
example, the default settings don't define ROOT_URLCONF, so ROOT_URL‐
CONF is followed by "###" in the output of diffsettings.
The --all option may be provided to display all settings, even if they
have Django's default value. Such settings are prefixed by "###".
dumpdata <app_label app_label app_label.Model ...>
django-admin dumpdata
Outputs to standard output all data in the database associated with the
named application(s).
If no application name is provided, all installed applications will be
dumped.
The output of dumpdata can be used as input for loaddata.
Note that dumpdata uses the default manager on the model for selecting
the records to dump. If you're using a custom manager as the default
manager and it filters some of the available records, not all of the
objects will be dumped.
The --all option may be provided to specify that dumpdata should use
Django's base manager, dumping records which might otherwise be fil‐
tered or modified by a custom manager.
--format <fmt>
By default, dumpdata will format its output in JSON, but you can use
the --format option to specify another format. Currently supported for‐
mats are listed in serialization-formats.
--indent <num>
By default, dumpdata will output all data on a single line. This isn't
easy for humans to read, so you can use the --indent option to
pretty-print the output with a number of indentation spaces.
The --exclude option may be provided to prevent specific applications
or models (specified as in the form of app_label.ModelName) from being
dumped. If you specify a model name to dumpdata, the dumped output will
be restricted to that model, rather than the entire application. You
can also mix application names and model names.
The --database option can be used to specify the database from which
data will be dumped.
--natural-foreign
When this option is specified, Django will use the natural_key() model
method to serialize any foreign key and many-to-many relationship to
objects of the type that defines the method. If you are dumping con‐
trib.auth Permission objects or contrib.contenttypes ContentType
objects, you should probably be using this flag. See the natural keys
documentation for more details on this and the next option.
--natural-primary
When this option is specified, Django will not provide the primary key
in the serialized data of this object since it can be calculated during
deserialization.
--pks
By default, dumpdata will output all the records of the model, but you
can use the --pks option to specify a comma separated list of primary
keys on which to filter. This is only available when dumping one
model.
--output
By default dumpdata will output all the serialized data to standard
output. This options allows to specify the file to which the data is
to be written.
flush
django-admin flush
Removes all data from the database, re-executes any post-synchroniza‐
tion handlers, and reinstalls any initial data fixtures.
The --noinput option may be provided to suppress all user prompts.
The --database option may be used to specify the database to flush.
inspectdb
django-admin inspectdb
Introspects the database tables and views in the database pointed-to by
the NAME setting and outputs a Django model module (a models.py file)
to standard output.
Use this if you have a legacy database with which you'd like to use
Django. The script will inspect the database and create a model for
each table or view within it.
As you might expect, the created models will have an attribute for
every field in the table or view. Note that inspectdb has a few special
cases in its field-name output:
· If inspectdb cannot map a column's type to a model field type, it'll
use TextField and will insert the Python comment 'This field type is
a guess.' next to the field in the generated model.
· If the database column name is a Python reserved word (such as
'pass', 'class' or 'for'), inspectdb will append '_field' to the
attribute name. For example, if a table has a column 'for', the gen‐
erated model will have a field 'for_field', with the db_column
attribute set to 'for'. inspectdb will insert the Python comment
'Field renamed because it was a Python reserved word.' next to the
field.
This feature is meant as a shortcut, not as definitive model genera‐
tion. After you run it, you'll want to look over the generated models
yourself to make customizations. In particular, you'll need to rear‐
range models' order, so that models that refer to other models are
ordered properly.
Primary keys are automatically introspected for PostgreSQL, MySQL and
SQLite, in which case Django puts in the primary_key=True where needed.
inspectdb works with PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite. Foreign-key detec‐
tion only works in PostgreSQL and with certain types of MySQL tables.
Django doesn't create database defaults when a default is specified on
a model field. Similarly, database defaults aren't translated to model
field defaults or detected in any fashion by inspectdb.
By default, inspectdb creates unmanaged models. That is, managed =
False in the model's Meta class tells Django not to manage each table's
creation, modification, and deletion. If you do want to allow Django to
manage the table's lifecycle, you'll need to change the managed option
to True (or simply remove it because True is its default value).
The --database option may be used to specify the database to intro‐
spect.
A feature to inspect database views was added. In previous versions,
only tables (not views) were inspected.
loaddata <fixture fixture ...>
django-admin loaddata
Searches for and loads the contents of the named fixture into the data‐
base.
The --database option can be used to specify the database onto which
the data will be loaded.
--ignorenonexistent
The --ignorenonexistent option can be used to ignore fields and models
that may have been removed since the fixture was originally generated.
--app
The --app option can be used to specify a single app to look for fix‐
tures in rather than looking through all apps.
--ignorenonexistent also ignores non-existent models.
What's a fixture ?
A fixture is a collection of files that contain the serialized contents
of the database. Each fixture has a unique name, and the files that
comprise the fixture can be distributed over multiple directories, in
multiple applications.
Django will search in three locations for fixtures:
1. In the fixtures directory of every installed application
2. In any directory named in the FIXTURE_DIRS setting
3. In the literal path named by the fixture
Django will load any and all fixtures it finds in these locations that
match the provided fixture names.
If the named fixture has a file extension, only fixtures of that type
will be loaded. For example:
django-admin loaddata mydata.json
would only load JSON fixtures called mydata. The fixture extension must
correspond to the registered name of a serializer (e.g., json or xml).
If you omit the extensions, Django will search all available fixture
types for a matching fixture. For example:
django-admin loaddata mydata
would look for any fixture of any fixture type called mydata. If a fix‐
ture directory contained mydata.json, that fixture would be loaded as a
JSON fixture.
The fixtures that are named can include directory components. These
directories will be included in the search path. For example:
django-admin loaddata foo/bar/mydata.json
would search <app_label>/fixtures/foo/bar/mydata.json for each
installed application, <dirname>/foo/bar/mydata.json for each direc‐
tory in FIXTURE_DIRS, and the literal path foo/bar/mydata.json.
When fixture files are processed, the data is saved to the database as
is. Model defined save() methods are not called, and any pre_save or
post_save signals will be called with raw=True since the instance only
contains attributes that are local to the model. You may, for example,
want to disable handlers that access related fields that aren't present
during fixture loading and would otherwise raise an exception:
from django.db.models.signals import post_save
from .models import MyModel
def my_handler(**kwargs):
# disable the handler during fixture loading
if kwargs['raw']:
return
...
post_save.connect(my_handler, sender=MyModel)
You could also write a simple decorator to encapsulate this logic:
from functools import wraps
def disable_for_loaddata(signal_handler):
"""
Decorator that turns off signal handlers when loading fixture data.
"""
@wraps(signal_handler)
def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
if kwargs['raw']:
return
signal_handler(*args, **kwargs)
return wrapper
@disable_for_loaddata
def my_handler(**kwargs):
...
Just be aware that this logic will disable the signals whenever fix‐
tures are deserialized, not just during loaddata.
Note that the order in which fixture files are processed is undefined.
However, all fixture data is installed as a single transaction, so data
in one fixture can reference data in another fixture. If the database
backend supports row-level constraints, these constraints will be
checked at the end of the transaction.
The dumpdata command can be used to generate input for loaddata.
Compressed fixtures
Fixtures may be compressed in zip, gz, or bz2 format. For example:
django-admin loaddata mydata.json
would look for any of mydata.json, mydata.json.zip, mydata.json.gz, or
mydata.json.bz2. The first file contained within a zip-compressed ar‐
chive is used.
Note that if two fixtures with the same name but different fixture type
are discovered (for example, if mydata.json and mydata.xml.gz were
found in the same fixture directory), fixture installation will be
aborted, and any data installed in the call to loaddata will be removed
from the database.
MySQL with MyISAM and fixtures
The MyISAM storage engine of MySQL doesn't support transac‐
tions or constraints, so if you use MyISAM, you won't get
validation of fixture data, or a rollback if multiple trans‐
action files are found.
Database-specific fixtures
If you're in a multi-database setup, you might have fixture data that
you want to load onto one database, but not onto another. In this situ‐
ation, you can add database identifier into the names of your fixtures.
For example, if your DATABASES setting has a 'master' database defined,
name the fixture mydata.master.json or mydata.master.json.gz and the
fixture will only be loaded when you specify you want to load data into
the master database.
makemessages
django-admin makemessages
Runs over the entire source tree of the current directory and pulls out
all strings marked for translation. It creates (or updates) a message
file in the conf/locale (in the Django tree) or locale (for project and
application) directory. After making changes to the messages files you
need to compile them with compilemessages for use with the builtin get‐
text support. See the i18n documentation for details.
--all
Use the --all or -a option to update the message files for all avail‐
able languages.
Example usage:
django-admin makemessages --all
--extension
Use the --extension or -e option to specify a list of file extensions
to examine (default: ".html", ".txt").
Example usage:
django-admin makemessages --locale=de --extension xhtml
Separate multiple extensions with commas or use -e or --extension mul‐
tiple times:
django-admin makemessages --locale=de --extension=html,txt --extension xml
Use the --locale option (or its shorter version -l) to specify the
locale(s) to process.
Use the --exclude option (or its shorter version -x) to specify the
locale(s) to exclude from processing. If not provided, no locales are
excluded.
Example usage:
django-admin makemessages --locale=pt_BR
django-admin makemessages --locale=pt_BR --locale=fr
django-admin makemessages -l pt_BR
django-admin makemessages -l pt_BR -l fr
django-admin makemessages --exclude=pt_BR
django-admin makemessages --exclude=pt_BR --exclude=fr
django-admin makemessages -x pt_BR
django-admin makemessages -x pt_BR -x fr
--domain
Use the --domain or -d option to change the domain of the messages
files. Currently supported:
· django for all *.py, *.html and *.txt files (default)
· djangojs for *.js files
--symlinks
Use the --symlinks or -s option to follow symlinks to directories when
looking for new translation strings.
Example usage:
django-admin makemessages --locale=de --symlinks
--ignore
Use the --ignore or -i option to ignore files or directories matching
the given glob-style pattern. Use multiple times to ignore more.
These patterns are used by default: 'CVS', '.*', '*~', '*.pyc'
Example usage:
django-admin makemessages --locale=en_US --ignore=apps/* --ignore=secret/*.html
--no-default-ignore
Use the --no-default-ignore option to disable the default values of
--ignore.
--no-wrap
Use the --no-wrap option to disable breaking long message lines into
several lines in language files.
--no-location
Use the --no-location option to not write '#: filename:line’ comment
lines in language files. Note that using this option makes it harder
for technically skilled translators to understand each message's con‐
text.
--keep-pot
Use the --keep-pot option to prevent Django from deleting the temporary
debugging errors which may prevent the final language files from being
created.
SEE ALSO:
See customizing-makemessages for instructions on how to customize
the keywords that makemessages passes to xgettext.
makemigrations [<app_label>]
django-admin makemigrations
Creates new migrations based on the changes detected to your models.
Migrations, their relationship with apps and more are covered in depth
in the migrations documentation.
Providing one or more app names as arguments will limit the migrations
created to the app(s) specified and any dependencies needed (the table
at the other end of a ForeignKey, for example).
--empty
The --empty option will cause makemigrations to output an empty migra‐
tion for the specified apps, for manual editing. This option is only
for advanced users and should not be used unless you are familiar with
the migration format, migration operations, and the dependencies
between your migrations.
--dry-run
The --dry-run option shows what migrations would be made without actu‐
ally writing any migrations files to disk. Using this option along with
--verbosity 3 will also show the complete migrations files that would
be written.
--merge
The --merge option enables fixing of migration conflicts. The --noinput
option may be provided to suppress user prompts during a merge.
--name, -n
The --name option allows you to give the migration(s) a custom name
instead of a generated one.
--exit, -e
The --exit option will cause makemigrations to exit with error code 1
when no migration are created (or would have been created, if combined
with --dry-run).
migrate [<app_label> [<migrationname>]]
django-admin migrate
Synchronizes the database state with the current set of models and
migrations. Migrations, their relationship with apps and more are cov‐
ered in depth in the migrations documentation.
The behavior of this command changes depending on the arguments pro‐
vided:
· No arguments: All apps have all of their migrations run.
· <app_label>: The specified app has its migrations run, up to the most
recent migration. This may involve running other apps' migrations
too, due to dependencies.
· <app_label> <migrationname>: Brings the database schema to a state
where the named migration is applied, but no later migrations in the
same app are applied. This may involve unapplying migrations if you
have previously migrated past the named migration. Use the name zero
to unapply all migrations for an app.
The --database option can be used to specify the database to migrate.
--fake
The --fake option tells Django to mark the migrations as having been
applied or unapplied, but without actually running the SQL to change
your database schema.
This is intended for advanced users to manipulate the current migration
state directly if they're manually applying changes; be warned that
using --fake runs the risk of putting the migration state table into a
state where manual recovery will be needed to make migrations run cor‐
rectly.
--fake-initial
The --fake-initial option can be used to allow Django to skip an app's
initial migration if all database tables with the names of all models
created by all CreateModel operations in that migration already exist.
This option is intended for use when first running migrations against a
database that preexisted the use of migrations. This option does not,
however, check for matching database schema beyond matching table names
and so is only safe to use if you are confident that your existing
schema matches what is recorded in your initial migration.
Deprecated since version 1.8: The --list option has been moved to the
showmigrations command.
runserver [port or address:port]
django-admin runserver
Starts a lightweight development Web server on the local machine. By
default, the server runs on port 8000 on the IP address 127.0.0.1. You
can pass in an IP address and port number explicitly.
If you run this script as a user with normal privileges (recommended),
you might not have access to start a port on a low port number. Low
port numbers are reserved for the superuser (root).
This server uses the WSGI application object specified by the
WSGI_APPLICATION setting.
DO NOT USE THIS SERVER IN A PRODUCTION SETTING. It has not gone through
security audits or performance tests. (And that's how it's gonna stay.
We're in the business of making Web frameworks, not Web servers, so
improving this server to be able to handle a production environment is
outside the scope of Django.)
The development server automatically reloads Python code for each
request, as needed. You don't need to restart the server for code
changes to take effect. However, some actions like adding files don't
trigger a restart, so you'll have to restart the server in these cases.
If you are using Linux and install pyinotify, kernel signals will be
used to autoreload the server (rather than polling file modification
timestamps each second). This offers better scaling to large projects,
reduction in response time to code modification, more robust change
detection, and battery usage reduction.
When you start the server, and each time you change Python code while
the server is running, the server will check your entire Django project
for errors (see the check command). If any errors are found, they will
be printed to standard output, but it won't stop the server.
You can run as many servers as you want, as long as they're on separate
ports. Just execute django-admin runserver more than once.
Note that the default IP address, 127.0.0.1, is not accessible from
other machines on your network. To make your development server view‐
able to other machines on the network, use its own IP address (e.g.
192.168.2.1) or 0.0.0.0 or :: (with IPv6 enabled).
You can provide an IPv6 address surrounded by brackets (e.g.
[200a::1]:8000). This will automatically enable IPv6 support.
A hostname containing ASCII-only characters can also be used.
If the staticfiles contrib app is enabled (default in new projects) the
runserver command will be overridden with its own runserver command.
If migrate was not previously executed, the table that stores the his‐
tory of migrations is created at first run of runserver.
--noreload
Use the --noreload option to disable the use of the auto-reloader. This
means any Python code changes you make while the server is running will
not take effect if the particular Python modules have already been
loaded into memory.
Example usage:
django-admin runserver --noreload
--nothreading
The development server is multithreaded by default. Use the --nothread‐
ing option to disable the use of threading in the development server.
--ipv6, -6
Use the --ipv6 (or shorter -6) option to tell Django to use IPv6 for
the development server. This changes the default IP address from
127.0.0.1 to ::1.
Example usage:
django-admin runserver --ipv6
Examples of using different ports and addresses
Port 8000 on IP address 127.0.0.1:
django-admin runserver
Port 8000 on IP address 1.2.3.4:
django-admin runserver 1.2.3.4:8000
Port 7000 on IP address 127.0.0.1:
django-admin runserver 7000
Port 7000 on IP address 1.2.3.4:
django-admin runserver 1.2.3.4:7000
Port 8000 on IPv6 address ::1:
django-admin runserver -6
Port 7000 on IPv6 address ::1:
django-admin runserver -6 7000
Port 7000 on IPv6 address 2001:0db8:1234:5678::9:
django-admin runserver [2001:0db8:1234:5678::9]:7000
Port 8000 on IPv4 address of host localhost:
django-admin runserver localhost:8000
Port 8000 on IPv6 address of host localhost:
django-admin runserver -6 localhost:8000
Serving static files with the development server
By default, the development server doesn't serve any static files for
your site (such as CSS files, images, things under MEDIA_URL and so
forth). If you want to configure Django to serve static media, read
/howto/static-files/index.
shell
django-admin shell
Starts the Python interactive interpreter.
Django will use IPython or bpython if either is installed. If you have
a rich shell installed but want to force use of the "plain" Python
interpreter, use the --plain option, like so:
django-admin shell --plain
If you would like to specify either IPython or bpython as your inter‐
preter if you have both installed you can specify an alternative inter‐
preter interface with the -i or --interface options like so:
IPython:
django-admin shell -i ipython
django-admin shell --interface ipython
bpython:
django-admin shell -i bpython
django-admin shell --interface bpython
When the "plain" Python interactive interpreter starts (be it because
--plain was specified or because no other interactive interface is
available) it reads the script pointed to by the PYTHONSTARTUP environ‐
ment variable and the ~/.pythonrc.py script. If you don't wish this
behavior you can use the --no-startup option. e.g.:
django-admin shell --plain --no-startup
showmigrations [<app_label> [<app_label>]]
django-admin showmigrations
Shows all migrations in a project.
--list, -l
The --list option lists all of the apps Django knows about, the migra‐
tions available for each app, and whether or not each migrations is
applied (marked by an [X] next to the migration name).
Apps without migrations are also listed, but have (no migrations)
printed under them.
--plan, -p
The --plan option shows the migration plan Django will follow to apply
migrations. Any supplied app labels are ignored because the plan might
go beyond those apps. Same as --list, applied migrations are marked by
an [X]. For a verbosity of 2 and above, all dependencies of a migration
will also be shown.
sqlflush
django-admin sqlflush
Prints the SQL statements that would be executed for the flush command.
The --database option can be used to specify the database for which to
print the SQL.
sqlmigrate <app_label> <migrationname>
django-admin sqlmigrate
Prints the SQL for the named migration. This requires an active data‐
base connection, which it will use to resolve constraint names; this
means you must generate the SQL against a copy of the database you wish
to later apply it on.
Note that sqlmigrate doesn't colorize its output.
The --database option can be used to specify the database for which to
generate the SQL.
--backwards
By default, the SQL created is for running the migration in the for‐
wards direction. Pass --backwards to generate the SQL for unapplying
the migration instead.
sqlsequencereset <app_label app_label ...>
django-admin sqlsequencereset
Prints the SQL statements for resetting sequences for the given app
name(s).
Sequences are indexes used by some database engines to track the next
available number for automatically incremented fields.
Use this command to generate SQL which will fix cases where a sequence
is out of sync with its automatically incremented field data.
The --database option can be used to specify the database for which to
print the SQL.
squashmigrations <app_label> <migration_name>
django-admin squashmigrations
Squashes the migrations for app_label up to and including migra‐
tion_name down into fewer migrations, if possible. The resulting
squashed migrations can live alongside the unsquashed ones safely. For
more information, please read migration-squashing.
--no-optimize
By default, Django will try to optimize the operations in your migra‐
tions to reduce the size of the resulting file. Pass --no-optimize if
this process is failing for you or creating incorrect migrations,
though please also file a Django bug report about the behavior, as
optimization is meant to be safe.
startapp <app_label> [destination]
django-admin startapp
Creates a Django app directory structure for the given app name in the
current directory or the given destination.
By default the directory created contains a models.py file and other
app template files. (See the source for more details.) If only the app
name is given, the app directory will be created in the current working
directory.
If the optional destination is provided, Django will use that existing
directory rather than creating a new one. You can use '.' to denote the
current working directory.
For example:
django-admin startapp myapp /Users/jezdez/Code/myapp
--template
With the --template option, you can use a custom app template by pro‐
viding either the path to a directory with the app template file, or a
path to a compressed file (.tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz, .zip) con‐
taining the app template files.
For example, this would look for an app template in the given directory
when creating the myapp app:
django-admin startapp --template=/Users/jezdez/Code/my_app_template myapp
Django will also accept URLs (http, https, ftp) to compressed archives
with the app template files, downloading and extracting them on the
fly.
For example, taking advantage of Github's feature to expose reposito‐
ries as zip files, you can use a URL like:
django-admin startapp --template=https://github.com/githubuser/django-app-template/archive/master.zip myapp
When Django copies the app template files, it also renders certain
files through the template engine: the files whose extensions match the
--extension option (py by default) and the files whose names are passed
with the --name option. The template context used is:
· Any option passed to the startapp command (among the command's sup‐
ported options)
· app_name -- the app name as passed to the command
· app_directory -- the full path of the newly created app
· docs_version -- the version of the documentation: 'dev' or '1.x'
WARNING:
When the app template files are rendered with the Django template
engine (by default all *.py files), Django will also replace all
stray template variables contained. For example, if one of the
Python files contains a docstring explaining a particular feature
related to template rendering, it might result in an incorrect exam‐
ple.
To work around this problem, you can use the templatetag templatetag
to "escape" the various parts of the template syntax.
startproject <projectname> [destination]
django-admin startproject
Creates a Django project directory structure for the given project name
in the current directory or the given destination.
By default, the new directory contains manage.py and a project package
(containing a settings.py and other files). See the template source for
details.
If only the project name is given, both the project directory and
project package will be named <projectname> and the project directory
will be created in the current working directory.
If the optional destination is provided, Django will use that existing
directory as the project directory, and create manage.py and the
project package within it. Use '.' to denote the current working direc‐
tory.
For example:
django-admin startproject myproject /Users/jezdez/Code/myproject_repo
As with the startapp command, the --template option lets you specify a
directory, file path or URL of a custom project template. See the
startapp documentation for details of supported project template for‐
mats.
For example, this would look for a project template in the given direc‐
tory when creating the myproject project:
django-admin startproject --template=/Users/jezdez/Code/my_project_template myproject
Django will also accept URLs (http, https, ftp) to compressed archives
with the project template files, downloading and extracting them on the
fly.
For example, taking advantage of Github's feature to expose reposito‐
ries as zip files, you can use a URL like:
django-admin startproject --template=https://github.com/githubuser/django-project-template/archive/master.zip myproject
When Django copies the project template files, it also renders certain
files through the template engine: the files whose extensions match the
--extension option (py by default) and the files whose names are passed
with the --name option. The template context used is:
· Any option passed to the startproject command (among the command's
supported options)
· project_name -- the project name as passed to the command
· project_directory -- the full path of the newly created project
· secret_key -- a random key for the SECRET_KEY setting
· docs_version -- the version of the documentation: 'dev' or '1.x'
Please also see the rendering warning as mentioned for startapp.
test <app or test identifier>
django-admin test
Runs tests for all installed models. See /topics/testing/index for more
information.
--failfast
The --failfast option can be used to stop running tests and report the
failure immediately after a test fails.
--testrunner
The --testrunner option can be used to control the test runner class
that is used to execute tests. If this value is provided, it overrides
the value provided by the TEST_RUNNER setting.
--liveserver
The --liveserver option can be used to override the default address
where the live server (used with LiveServerTestCase) is expected to run
from. The default value is localhost:8081.
--keepdb
The --keepdb option can be used to preserve the test database between
test runs. This has the advantage of skipping both the create and
destroy actions which greatly decreases the time to run tests, espe‐
cially those in a large test suite. If the test database does not
exist, it will be created on the first run and then preserved for each
subsequent run. Any unapplied migrations will also be applied to the
test database before running the test suite.
--reverse
The --reverse option can be used to sort test cases in the opposite
order. This may help in debugging tests that aren't properly isolated
and have side effects. Grouping by test class is preserved when using
this option.
--debug-sql
The --debug-sql option can be used to enable SQL logging for failing
tests. If --verbosity is 2, then queries in passing tests are also out‐
put.
testserver <fixture fixture ...>
django-admin testserver
Runs a Django development server (as in runserver) using data from the
given fixture(s).
For example, this command:
django-admin testserver mydata.json
...would perform the following steps:
1. Create a test database, as described in the-test-database.
2. Populate the test database with fixture data from the given fix‐
tures. (For more on fixtures, see the documentation for loaddata
above.)
3. Runs the Django development server (as in runserver), pointed at
this newly created test database instead of your production data‐
base.
This is useful in a number of ways:
· When you're writing unit tests of how your views act with certain
fixture data, you can use testserver to interact with the views in a
Web browser, manually.
· Let's say you're developing your Django application and have a "pris‐
tine" copy of a database that you'd like to interact with. You can
dump your database to a fixture (using the dumpdata command,
explained above), then use testserver to run your Web application
with that data. With this arrangement, you have the flexibility of
messing up your data in any way, knowing that whatever data changes
you're making are only being made to a test database.
Note that this server does not automatically detect changes to your
Python source code (as runserver does). It does, however, detect
changes to templates.
--addrport [port number or ipaddr:port]
Use --addrport to specify a different port, or IP address and port,
from the default of 127.0.0.1:8000. This value follows exactly the same
format and serves exactly the same function as the argument to the
runserver command.
Examples:
To run the test server on port 7000 with fixture1 and fixture2:
django-admin testserver --addrport 7000 fixture1 fixture2
django-admin testserver fixture1 fixture2 --addrport 7000
(The above statements are equivalent. We include both of them to demon‐
strate that it doesn't matter whether the options come before or after
the fixture arguments.)
To run on 1.2.3.4:7000 with a test fixture:
django-admin testserver --addrport 1.2.3.4:7000 test
The --noinput option may be provided to suppress all user prompts.
COMMANDS PROVIDED BY APPLICATIONS
Some commands are only available when the django.contrib application
that implements them has been enabled. This section describes them
grouped by their application.
django.contrib.auth
changepassword
django-admin changepassword
This command is only available if Django's authentication system
(django.contrib.auth) is installed.
Allows changing a user's password. It prompts you to enter twice the
password of the user given as parameter. If they both match, the new
password will be changed immediately. If you do not supply a user, the
command will attempt to change the password whose username matches the
current user.
Use the --database option to specify the database to query for the
user. If it's not supplied, Django will use the default database.
Example usage:
django-admin changepassword ringo
createsuperuser
django-admin createsuperuser
This command is only available if Django's authentication system
(django.contrib.auth) is installed.
Creates a superuser account (a user who has all permissions). This is
useful if you need to create an initial superuser account or if you
need to programmatically generate superuser accounts for your site(s).
When run interactively, this command will prompt for a password for the
new superuser account. When run non-interactively, no password will be
set, and the superuser account will not be able to log in until a pass‐
word has been manually set for it.
--username
--email
The username and email address for the new account can be supplied by
using the --username and --email arguments on the command line. If
either of those is not supplied, createsuperuser will prompt for it
when running interactively.
Use the --database option to specify the database into which the supe‐
ruser object will be saved.
You can subclass the management command and override get_input_data()
if you want to customize data input and validation. Consult the source
code for details on the existing implementation and the method's param‐
eters. For example, it could be useful if you have a ForeignKey in
REQUIRED_FIELDS and want to allow creating an instance instead of
entering the primary key of an existing instance.
django.contrib.gis
ogrinspect
This command is only available if GeoDjango (django.contrib.gis) is
installed.
Please refer to its description in the GeoDjango documentation.
django.contrib.sessions
clearsessions
django-admin clearsessions
Can be run as a cron job or directly to clean out expired sessions.
django.contrib.sitemaps
ping_google
This command is only available if the Sitemaps framework (django.con‐
trib.sitemaps) is installed.
Please refer to its description in the Sitemaps documentation.
django.contrib.staticfiles
collectstatic
This command is only available if the static files application
(django.contrib.staticfiles) is installed.
Please refer to its description in the staticfiles documentation.
findstatic
This command is only available if the static files application
(django.contrib.staticfiles) is installed.
Please refer to its description in the staticfiles documentation.
DEFAULT OPTIONS
Although some commands may allow their own custom options, every com‐
mand allows for the following options:
--pythonpath
Example usage:
django-admin migrate --pythonpath='/home/djangoprojects/myproject'
Adds the given filesystem path to the Python import search path. If
this isn't provided, django-admin will use the PYTHONPATH environment
variable.
Note that this option is unnecessary in manage.py, because it takes
care of setting the Python path for you.
--settings
Example usage:
django-admin migrate --settings=mysite.settings
Explicitly specifies the settings module to use. The settings module
should be in Python package syntax, e.g. mysite.settings. If this isn't
provided, django-admin will use the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment
variable.
Note that this option is unnecessary in manage.py, because it uses set‐
tings.py from the current project by default.
--traceback
Example usage:
django-admin migrate --traceback
By default, django-admin will show a simple error message whenever an
CommandError occurs, but a full stack trace for any other exception. If
you specify --traceback, django-admin will also output a full stack
trace when a CommandError is raised.
--verbosity
Example usage:
django-admin migrate --verbosity 2
Use --verbosity to specify the amount of notification and debug infor‐
mation that django-admin should print to the console.
· 0 means no output.
· 1 means normal output (default).
· 2 means verbose output.
· 3 means very verbose output.
--no-color
Example usage:
django-admin sqlall --no-color
By default, django-admin will format the output to be colorized. For
example, errors will be printed to the console in red and SQL state‐
ments will be syntax highlighted. To prevent this and have a plain text
output, pass the --no-color option when running your command.
COMMON OPTIONS
The following options are not available on every command, but they are
common to a number of commands.
--database
Used to specify the database on which a command will operate. If not
specified, this option will default to an alias of default.
For example, to dump data from the database with the alias master:
django-admin dumpdata --database=master
--exclude
Exclude a specific application from the applications whose contents is
output. For example, to specifically exclude the auth application from
the output of dumpdata, you would call:
django-admin dumpdata --exclude=auth
If you want to exclude multiple applications, use multiple --exclude
directives:
django-admin dumpdata --exclude=auth --exclude=contenttypes
--locale
Use the --locale or -l option to specify the locale to process. If not
provided all locales are processed.
--noinput
Use the --noinput option to suppress all user prompting, such as "Are
you sure?" confirmation messages. This is useful if django-admin is
being executed as an unattended, automated script.
EXTRA NICETIES
Syntax coloring
The django-admin / manage.py commands will use pretty color-coded out‐
put if your terminal supports ANSI-colored output. It won't use the
color codes if you're piping the command's output to another program.
Under Windows, the native console doesn't support ANSI escape sequences
so by default there is no color output. But you can install the ANSICON
third-party tool, the Django commands will detect its presence and will
make use of its services to color output just like on Unix-based plat‐
forms.
The colors used for syntax highlighting can be customized. Django ships
with three color palettes:
· dark, suited to terminals that show white text on a black background.
This is the default palette.
· light, suited to terminals that show black text on a white back‐
ground.
· nocolor, which disables syntax highlighting.
You select a palette by setting a DJANGO_COLORS environment variable to
specify the palette you want to use. For example, to specify the light
palette under a Unix or OS/X BASH shell, you would run the following at
a command prompt:
export DJANGO_COLORS="light"
You can also customize the colors that are used. Django specifies a
number of roles in which color is used:
· error - A major error.
· notice - A minor error.
· sql_field - The name of a model field in SQL.
· sql_coltype - The type of a model field in SQL.
· sql_keyword - An SQL keyword.
· sql_table - The name of a model in SQL.
· http_info - A 1XX HTTP Informational server response.
· http_success - A 2XX HTTP Success server response.
· http_not_modified - A 304 HTTP Not Modified server response.
· http_redirect - A 3XX HTTP Redirect server response other than 304.
· http_not_found - A 404 HTTP Not Found server response.
· http_bad_request - A 4XX HTTP Bad Request server response other than
404.
· http_server_error - A 5XX HTTP Server Error response.
Each of these roles can be assigned a specific foreground and back‐
ground color, from the following list:
· black
· red
· green
· yellow
· blue
· magenta
· cyan
· white
Each of these colors can then be modified by using the following dis‐
play options:
· bold
· underscore
· blink
· reverse
· conceal
A color specification follows one of the following patterns:
· role=fg
· role=fg/bg
· role=fg,option,option
· role=fg/bg,option,option
where role is the name of a valid color role, fg is the foreground
color, bg is the background color and each option is one of the color
modifying options. Multiple color specifications are then separated by
semicolon. For example:
export DJANGO_COLORS="error=yellow/blue,blink;notice=magenta"
would specify that errors be displayed using blinking yellow on blue,
and notices displayed using magenta. All other color roles would be
left uncolored.
Colors can also be specified by extending a base palette. If you put a
palette name in a color specification, all the colors implied by that
palette will be loaded. So:
export DJANGO_COLORS="light;error=yellow/blue,blink;notice=magenta"
would specify the use of all the colors in the light color palette,
except for the colors for errors and notices which would be overridden
as specified.
Bash completion
If you use the Bash shell, consider installing the Django bash comple‐
tion script, which lives in extras/django_bash_completion in the Django
distribution. It enables tab-completion of django-admin and manage.py
commands, so you can, for instance...
· Type django-admin.
· Press [TAB] to see all available options.
· Type sql, then [TAB], to see all available options whose names start
with sql.
See /howto/custom-management-commands for how to add customized
actions.
django.core.management.call_command(name, *args, **options)
To call a management command from code use call_command.
name the name of the command to call.
*args a list of arguments accepted by the command.
**options
named options accepted on the command-line.
Examples:
from django.core import management
management.call_command('flush', verbosity=0, interactive=False)
management.call_command('loaddata', 'test_data', verbosity=0)
Note that command options that take no arguments are passed as keywords
with True or False, as you can see with the interactive option above.
Named arguments can be passed by using either one of the following syn‐
taxes:
# Similar to the command line
management.call_command('dumpdata', '--natural-foreign')
# Named argument similar to the command line minus the initial dashes and
# with internal dashes replaced by underscores
management.call_command('dumpdata', natural_foreign=True)
# `use_natural_foreign_keys` is the option destination variable
management.call_command('dumpdata', use_natural_foreign_keys=True)
The first syntax is now supported thanks to management commands using
the argparse module. For the second syntax, Django previously passed
the option name as-is to the command, now it is always using the dest
variable name (which may or may not be the same as the option name).
Command options which take multiple options are passed a list:
management.call_command('dumpdata', exclude=['contenttypes', 'auth'])
OUTPUT REDIRECTION
Note that you can redirect standard output and error streams as all
commands support the stdout and stderr options. For example, you could
write:
with open('/tmp/command_output') as f:
management.call_command('dumpdata', stdout=f)
AUTHOR
Django Software Foundation
COPYRIGHT
Django Software Foundation and contributors
1.9 March 07, 2015 DJANGO-ADMIN(1)
