django-classbasedsettings 0.1.1

Use classes to define settings.

This project allows you to define your Django project’s settings using classes instead of modules. Among other things, this allows you to use inheritance and calculated properties.

Installation

The easiest way to install is by using pip:

pip install -e git://github.com/matthewwithanm/django-classbasedsettings.git#egg=django-classbasedsettings

However you can also just drop the “cbsettings” folder into your pythonpath.

Setup

The places where you’re currently setting DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE, you’ll have to instead call cbsettings.configure. So your manage.py will look something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import cbsettings

if __name__ == "__main__":
    cbsettings.configure('path.to.MySettings')

    from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line

    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

You’ll have to make a similar modification to your wsgi file.

Usage

Basic

The only real change you need to make to the settings.py file that Django creates for you is to nest all the variables in a class:

from cbsettings.settings import DjangoDefaults

class MySettings(DjangoDefaults):

    ADMINS = (
        # ('Your Name', '[e-mail]'),
    )

    MANAGERS = ADMINS

    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.',
            'NAME': '',
            'USER': '',
            'PASSWORD': '',
            'HOST': '',
            'PORT': '',
        }
    }

    # etc, etc

Notice that the class extends DjangoDefaults. By inheriting from this class, you get all the default settings values that Django normally composites your settings with. (These are pulled in from django.conf.global_settings so they’ll track with your version of Django, not classbasedsettings.) You can also do stuff like this:

class MySettings(DjangoDefaults):

    STATICFILES_FINDERS = DjangoDefaults.STATICFILES_FINDERS + (
        'my.custom.StaticFileFinder',
    )

    # etc

These are just normal Python classes, so you can do anything you normally can:

class MySettings(DjangoDefaults):

    @property
    def TEMPLATE_DEBUG(self):
        # Now a subclass can override DEBUG and TEMPLATE_DEBUG will be changed accordingly
        return self.DEBUG

    # etc

Using a Settings Factory

You might be thinking that hardcoding your settings class into files is just as bad as Django’s hardcoding of the settings module. That’s true. Which is why configure() can be passed the path to any callable that returns a settings object instance. So your manage.py might instead look like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import cbsettings

if __name__ == "__main__":
    cbsettings.configure('path.to.my.settings.factory')

    from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line

    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

Then, in path/to/my/settings.py:

def factory():
    if 'DEV' in os.environ:
        return MyDebugSettings()
    else:
        return MyProductionSettings()

Now you can easily change which settings class you’re using based on whatever conditions you want without having to make modifications to multiple files.

Using Switcher

Using a factory method to determine which settings class to use is a powerful feature! But usually you’ll want to switch settings classes based on the same kinds of conditions, so django-classbasedsettings comes with a factory that’ll handle these common cases. It also uses a more declarative syntax, which makes it more organized than a factory method. Here’s how you use it in your settings file:

from cbsettings import switcher
from cbsettings.settings import DjangoDefaults

class MyProductionSettings(DjangoDefaults):
    DEBUG = False
    # etc

class MyDevSettings(DjangoDefaults):
    DEBUG = True
    # etc

switcher.register(MyProductionSettings, hostnames=['theserver.com'])
switcher.register(MyDevSettings, hostnames=['mycompuer.home', 'billscomputer.home'])

You can also use switcher.register as a decorator:

from cbsettings import switcher
from cbsettings.settings import DjangoDefaults

@switcher.register(hostnames=['theserver.com'])
class MyProductionSettings(DjangoDefaults):
    DEBUG = False
    # etc

@switcher.register(hostnames=['mycompuer.home', 'billscomputer.home'])
class MyDevSettings(DjangoDefaults):
    DEBUG = True
    # etc

Then, wherever you’re calling configure, pass it your module’s switcher variable:

cbsettings.configure('path.to.my.settings.switcher')