setup.md

Setup

Setting up the Python site for local development is quick and easy using pip. Alternatively, you can set it up using Docker. Both of these methods are documented here.

PostgreSQL setup

Install PostgreSQL according to its documentation. Then, create databases and users:

$ psql -qd postgres
postgres=# CREATE USER pysite WITH CREATEDB;
postgres=# CREATE DATABASE pysite OWNER pysite;

Using different databases for development and tests is recommended because Django will expect an empty database when running tests. Now that PostgreSQL is set up, simply set the proper database URL in your environment variables:

export DATABASE_URL=postgres://pysite@localhost/pysite

After this step, inside the .env file, set the SECRET_KEY variable which can be anything you like.

A simpler approach to automatically configuring this might come in the near future - if you have any suggestions, please let us know!

Development with Docker

To quickly set up the site locally, you can use Docker. You will need Docker itself and docker-compose - you can omit the latter if you want to use PostgreSQL on your host. Refer to the docker documentation on how to install Docker.

If you want to set the site up using docker-compose, simply run

docker-compose up

and it will do its magic.

Otherwise, you need to set a bunch of environment variables (or pass them along to the container). You will also need to have a running PostgreSQL instance if you want to run on your host's PostgreSQL instance.

Development with pip

This is the recommended way if you wish to quickly test your changes and don't want the overhead that Docker brings.

Follow the PostgreSQL setup instructions above. Then, create a virtual environment for the project. If you're new to this, you may want to check out Installing packages using pip and virtualenv from the Python Packaging User Guide.

Enter the virtual environment. Now you can run

pip install -e .[lint,test]

to install base dependencies along with lint and test dependencies.

To run tests, use python manage.py test.

Hosts file

Make sure you add the following to your hosts file:

127.0.0.1   pythondiscord.local
127.0.0.1   api.pythondiscord.local
127.0.0.1   staff.pythondiscord.local
127.0.0.1   admin.pythondiscord.local
127.0.0.1   wiki.pythondiscord.local
127.0.0.1   ws.pythondiscord.local

When trying to access the site, you'll be using the domains above instead of the usual localhost:8000.

Finally, you will need to set the environment variable DEBUG=1. When using pipenv, you can set put this into an .env file to have it exported automatically. It's also recommended to export LOG_LEVEL=INFO when using DEBUG=1 if you don't want super verbose logs.

To run the server, run python manage.py runserver. If it gives you an error saying django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Set the DATABASE_URL environment variable please make sure the server that your postgres database is located at is running and run the command $(export cat .env). Happy hacking!