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 440:

1.4.dev17026
1.4a1
1.4

Displaying debug output¶

Use --verbosity, where it is supported, to specify the amount of notification and debug information that django-admin prints to the console.

check¶

django-admin check [app_label [app_label ...]]¶

Uses the system check framework to inspect the entire Django project for common problems.

By default, all apps will be checked. You can check a subset of apps by providing a list of app labels as arguments:

django-admin check auth admin myapp

--tag TAGS, -t TAGS¶

The system check framework performs many different types of checks that 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 models and compatibility checks, run:

django-admin check --tag models --tag compatibility

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database to run checks requiring database access:

django-admin check --database default --database other

By default, these checks will not be run.

--list-tags¶

Lists all available tags.

--deploy¶

Activates some additional checks that are only relevant 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_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable, or by passing the --settings option:

django-admin 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.

--fail-level {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}¶

Specifies the message level that will cause the command to exit with a non-zero status. Default is ERROR.

compilemessages¶

django-admin compilemessages¶

Compiles .po files created by makemessages to .mo files for use with the built-in gettext support. See Internationalization and localization.

--locale LOCALE, -l LOCALE¶

Specifies the locale(s) to process. If not provided, all locales are processed.

--exclude EXCLUDE, -x EXCLUDE¶

Specifies the locale(s) to exclude from processing. If not provided, no locales are excluded.

--use-fuzzy, -f¶

Includes fuzzy translations into compiled files.

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

--ignore PATTERN, -i PATTERN¶

Ignores directories matching the given glob-style pattern. Use multiple times to ignore more.

Example usage:

django-admin compilemessages --ignore=cache --ignore=outdated/*/locale

createcachetable¶

django-admin createcachetable¶

Creates the cache tables for use with the database cache backend using the information from your settings file. See Django’s cache framework for more information.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database in which the cache table(s) will be created. Defaults to default.

--dry-run¶

Prints the SQL that would be run without actually running it, so you can customize it or use the migrations framework.

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.
• For Oracle, this runs the sqlplus command-line client.

This command assumes the programs are on your PATH so that a call to the program name (psql, mysql, sqlite3, sqlplus) will find the program in the right place. There’s no way to specify the location of the program manually.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database onto which to open a shell. Defaults to default.

-- ARGUMENTS¶

Any arguments following a -- divider will be passed on to the underlying command-line client. For example, with PostgreSQL you can use the psql command’s -c flag to execute a raw SQL query directly:

$ django-admin dbshell -- -c 'select current_user'
 current_user
--------------
 postgres
(1 row)

...\> django-admin dbshell -- -c 'select current_user'
 current_user
--------------
 postgres
(1 row)

On MySQL/MariaDB, you can do this with the mysql command’s -e flag:

$ django-admin dbshell -- -e "select user()"
+----------------------+
| user()               |
+----------------------+
| djangonaut@localhost |
+----------------------+

...\> django-admin dbshell -- -e "select user()"
+----------------------+
| user()               |
+----------------------+
| djangonaut@localhost |
+----------------------+

diffsettings¶

django-admin diffsettings¶

Displays differences between the current settings file and Django’s default settings (or another settings file specified by --default).

Settings that don’t appear in the defaults are followed by "###". For example, the default settings don’t define ROOT_URLCONF, so ROOT_URLCONF is followed by "###" in the output of diffsettings.

--all¶

Displays all settings, even if they have Django’s default value. Such settings are prefixed by "###".

--default MODULE¶

The settings module to compare the current settings against. Leave empty to compare against Django’s default settings.

--output {hash,unified}¶

Specifies the output format. Available values are hash and unified. hash is the default mode that displays the output that’s described above. unified displays the output similar to diff -u. Default settings are prefixed with a minus sign, followed by the changed setting prefixed with a plus sign.

dumpdata¶

django-admin dumpdata [app_label[.ModelName] [app_label[.ModelName] ...]]¶

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.

When result of dumpdata is saved as a file, it can serve as a fixture for tests or as an initial data.

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.

--all, -a¶

Uses Django’s base manager, dumping records which might otherwise be filtered or modified by a custom manager.

--format FORMAT¶

Specifies the serialization format of the output. Defaults to JSON. Supported formats are listed in Serialization formats.

--indent INDENT¶

Specifies the number of indentation spaces to use in the output. Defaults to None which displays all data on single line.

--exclude EXCLUDE, -e EXCLUDE¶

Prevents specific applications or models (specified in the form of app_label.ModelName) from being dumped. If you specify a model name, then only that model will be excluded, rather than the entire application. You can also mix application names and model names.

If you want to exclude multiple applications, pass --exclude more than once:

django-admin dumpdata --exclude=auth --exclude=contenttypes

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database from which data will be dumped. Defaults to default.

--natural-foreign¶

Uses 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’re dumping contrib.auth Permission objects or contrib.contenttypes ContentType objects, you should probably use this flag. See the natural keys documentation for more details on this and the next option.

--natural-primary¶

Omits the primary key in the serialized data of this object since it can be calculated during deserialization.

--pks PRIMARY_KEYS¶

Outputs only the objects specified by a comma separated list of primary keys. This is only available when dumping one model. By default, all the records of the model are output.

--output OUTPUT, -o OUTPUT¶

Specifies a file to write the serialized data to. By default, the data goes to standard output.

When this option is set and --verbosity is greater than 0 (the default), a progress bar is shown in the terminal.

django-admin dumpdata -o mydata.json.gz

flush¶

django-admin flush¶

Removes all data from the database and re-executes any post-synchronization handlers. The table of which migrations have been applied is not cleared.

If you would rather start from an empty database and rerun all migrations, you should drop and recreate the database and then run migrate instead.

--noinput, --no-input¶

Suppresses all user prompts.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database to flush. Defaults to default.

inspectdb¶

django-admin inspectdb [table [table ...]]¶

Introspects the database tables in the database pointed-to by the NAME setting and outputs a Django model module (a models.py file) to standard output.

You may choose what tables or views to inspect by passing their names as arguments. If no arguments are provided, models are created for views only if the --include-views option is used. Models for partition tables are created on PostgreSQL if the --include-partitions option is used.

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 within it.

As you might expect, the created models will have an attribute for every field in the table. 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. The recognized fields may depend on apps listed in INSTALLED_APPS. For example, django.contrib.postgres adds recognition for several PostgreSQL-specific field types.
• 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 generated 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 generation. After you run it, you’ll want to look over the generated models yourself to make customizations. In particular, you’ll need to rearrange models’ order, so that models that refer to other models are ordered properly.

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 remove it because True is its default value).

loaddata¶

django-admin loaddata fixture [fixture ...]¶

Searches for and loads the contents of the named fixture into the database.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database into which the data will be loaded. Defaults to default.

--ignorenonexistent, -i¶

Ignores fields and models that may have been removed since the fixture was originally generated.

--app APP_LABEL¶

Specifies a single app to look for fixtures in rather than looking in all apps.

--format FORMAT¶

Specifies the serialization format (e.g., json or xml) for fixtures read from stdin.

--exclude EXCLUDE, -e EXCLUDE¶

Excludes loading the fixtures from the given applications and/or models (in the form of app_label or app_label.ModelName). Use the option multiple times to exclude more than one app or model.

django-admin loaddata --format=json -

django-admin dumpdata --format=json --database=test app_label.ModelName | django-admin loaddata --format=json --database=prod -

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 gettext support. See the i18n documentation for details.

This command doesn’t require configured settings. However, when settings aren’t configured, the command can’t ignore the MEDIA_ROOT and STATIC_ROOT directories or include LOCALE_PATHS.

--all, -a¶

Updates the message files for all available languages.

--extension EXTENSIONS, -e EXTENSIONS¶

Specifies a list of file extensions to examine (default: html, txt, py or js if --domain is djangojs).

Example usage:

django-admin makemessages --locale=de --extension xhtml

Separate multiple extensions with commas or use -e or --extension multiple times:

django-admin makemessages --locale=de --extension=html,txt --extension xml

--locale LOCALE, -l LOCALE¶

Specifies the locale(s) to process.

--exclude EXCLUDE, -x EXCLUDE¶

Specifies 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 DOMAIN, -d DOMAIN¶

Specifies the domain of the messages files. Supported options are:

• django for all *.py, *.html and *.txt files (default)
• djangojs for *.js files

--symlinks, -s¶

Follows symlinks to directories when looking for new translation strings.

Example usage:

django-admin makemessages --locale=de --symlinks

--ignore PATTERN, -i PATTERN¶

Ignores 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¶

Disables the default values of --ignore.

--no-wrap¶

Disables breaking long message lines into several lines in language files.

--no-location¶

Suppresses writing ‘#: filename:line’ comment lines in language files. Using this option makes it harder for technically skilled translators to understand each message’s context.

--add-location [{full,file,never}]¶

Controls #: filename:line comment lines in language files. If the option is:

• full (the default if not given): the lines include both file name and line number.
• file: the line number is omitted.
• never: the lines are suppressed (same as --no-location).

Requires gettext 0.19 or newer.

--no-obsolete¶

Removes obsolete message strings from the .po files.

--keep-pot¶

Prevents deleting the temporary .pot files generated before creating the .po file. This is useful for debugging errors which may prevent the final language files from being created.

makemigrations¶

django-admin makemigrations [app_label [app_label ...]]¶

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).

To add migrations to an app that doesn’t have a migrations directory, run makemigrations with the app’s app_label.

--noinput, --no-input¶

Suppresses all user prompts. If a suppressed prompt cannot be resolved automatically, the command will exit with error code 3.

--empty¶

Outputs an empty migration for the specified apps, for manual editing. This is 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¶

Shows what migrations would be made without actually 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¶

Enables fixing of migration conflicts.

--name NAME, -n NAME¶

Allows naming the generated migration(s) instead of using a generated name. The name must be a valid Python identifier.

--no-header¶

Generate migration files without Django version and timestamp header.

--check¶

Makes makemigrations exit with a non-zero status when model changes without migrations are detected. Implies --dry-run.

--scriptable¶

Diverts log output and input prompts to stderr, writing only paths of generated migration files to stdout.

--update¶

Merges model changes into the latest migration and optimize the resulting operations.

The updated migration will have a generated name. In order to preserve the previous name, set it using --name.

migrate¶

django-admin migrate [app_label] [migration_name]¶

Synchronizes the database state with the current set of models and migrations. Migrations, their relationship with apps and more are covered in depth in the migrations documentation.

The behavior of this command changes depending on the arguments provided:

• 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. You can use a prefix of the migration name, e.g. 0001, as long as it’s unique for the given app name. Use the name zero to migrate all the way back i.e. to revert all applied migrations for an app.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database to migrate. Defaults to default.

--fake¶

Marks the migrations up to the target one (following the rules above) as applied, 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 correctly.

--fake-initial¶

Allows 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.

--plan¶

Shows the migration operations that will be performed for the given migrate command.

--run-syncdb¶

Allows creating tables for apps without migrations. While this isn’t recommended, the migrations framework is sometimes too slow on large projects with hundreds of models.

--noinput, --no-input¶

Suppresses all user prompts. An example prompt is asking about removing stale content types.

--check¶

Makes migrate exit with a non-zero status when unapplied migrations are detected.

--prune¶

Deletes nonexistent migrations from the django_migrations table. This is useful when migration files replaced by a squashed migration have been removed. See Squashing migrations for more details.

optimizemigration¶

django-admin optimizemigration app_label migration_name¶

Optimizes the operations for the named migration and overrides the existing file. If the migration contains functions that must be manually copied, the command creates a new migration file suffixed with _optimized that is meant to replace the named migration.

--check¶

Makes optimizemigration exit with a non-zero status when a migration can be optimized.

runserver¶

django-admin runserver [addrport]¶

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’re using Linux or MacOS and install both pywatchman and the Watchman service, kernel signals will be used to autoreload the server (rather than polling file modification timestamps each second). This offers better performance on large projects, reduced response time after code changes, more robust change detection, and a reduction in power usage. Django supports pywatchman 1.2.0 and higher.

When you start the server, and each time you change Python code while the server is running, the system check framework will check your entire Django project for some common errors (see the check command). If any errors are found, they will be printed to standard output. You can use the --skip-checks option to skip running system checks.

You can run as many concurrent servers as you want, as long as they’re on separate ports by executing 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 viewable to other machines on the network, use its own IP address (e.g. 192.168.2.1), 0 (shortcut for 0.0.0.0), 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.

Logging of each request and response of the server is sent to the django.server logger.

--noreload¶

Disables 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.

--nothreading¶

Disables use of threading in the development server. The server is multithreaded by default.

--ipv6, -6¶

Uses IPv6 for the development server. This changes the default IP address from 127.0.0.1 to ::1.

django-admin runserver

django-admin runserver 1.2.3.4:8000

django-admin runserver 7000

django-admin runserver 1.2.3.4:7000

django-admin runserver -6

django-admin runserver -6 7000

django-admin runserver [2001:0db8:1234:5678::9]:7000

django-admin runserver localhost:8000

django-admin runserver -6 localhost:8000

sendtestemail¶

django-admin sendtestemail [email [email ...]]¶

Sends a test email (to confirm email sending through Django is working) to the recipient(s) specified. For example:

django-admin sendtestemail foo@example.com bar@example.com

There are a couple of options, and you may use any combination of them together:

--managers¶

Mails the email addresses specified in MANAGERS using mail_managers().

--admins¶

Mails the email addresses specified in ADMINS using mail_admins().

shell¶

django-admin shell¶

Starts the Python interactive interpreter.

--interface {ipython,bpython,python}, -i {ipython,bpython,python}¶

Specifies the shell to use. By default, Django will use IPython or bpython if either is installed. If both are installed, specify which one you want like so:

IPython:

django-admin shell -i ipython

bpython:

django-admin shell -i bpython

If you have a “rich” shell installed but want to force use of the “plain” Python interpreter, use python as the interface name, like so:

django-admin shell -i python

--nostartup¶

Disables reading the startup script for the “plain” Python interpreter. By default, the script pointed to by the PYTHONSTARTUP environment variable or the ~/.pythonrc.py script is read.

--command COMMAND, -c COMMAND¶

Lets you pass a command as a string to execute it as Django, like so:

django-admin shell --command="import django; print(django.__version__)"

You can also pass code in on standard input to execute it. For example:

$ django-admin shell <<EOF
> import django
> print(django.__version__)
> EOF

On Windows, the REPL is output due to implementation limits of select.select() on that platform.

showmigrations¶

django-admin showmigrations [app_label [app_label ...]]¶

Shows all migrations in a project. You can choose from one of two formats:

--list, -l¶

Lists all of the apps Django knows about, the migrations available for each app, and whether or not each migration is applied (marked by an [X] next to the migration name). For a --verbosity of 2 and above, the applied datetimes are also shown.

Apps without migrations are also listed, but have (no migrations) printed under them.

This is the default output format.

--plan, -p¶

Shows the migration plan Django will follow to apply migrations. Like --list, applied migrations are marked by an [X]. For a --verbosity of 2 and above, all dependencies of a migration will also be shown.

app_labels arguments limit the output, however, dependencies of provided apps may also be included.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database to examine. Defaults to default.

sqlflush¶

django-admin sqlflush¶

Prints the SQL statements that would be executed for the flush command.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database for which to print the SQL. Defaults to default.

sqlmigrate¶

django-admin sqlmigrate app_label migration_name¶

Prints the SQL for the named migration. This requires an active database 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.

--backwards¶

Generates the SQL for unapplying the migration. By default, the SQL created is for running the migration in the forwards direction.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database for which to generate the SQL. Defaults to default.

sqlsequencereset¶

django-admin sqlsequencereset app_label [app_label ...]¶

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.

--database DATABASE¶

Specifies the database for which to print the SQL. Defaults to default.

squashmigrations¶

django-admin squashmigrations app_label [start_migration_name] migration_name¶

Squashes the migrations for app_label up to and including migration_name down into fewer migrations, if possible. The resulting squashed migrations can live alongside the unsquashed ones safely. For more information, please read Squashing migrations.

When start_migration_name is given, Django will only include migrations starting from and including this migration. This helps to mitigate the squashing limitation of RunPython and django.db.migrations.operations.RunSQL migration operations.

--no-optimize¶

Disables the optimizer when generating a squashed migration. By default, Django will try to optimize the operations in your migrations to reduce the size of the resulting file. Use this option if this process is failing or creating incorrect migrations, though please also file a Django bug report about the behavior, as optimization is meant to be safe.

--noinput, --no-input¶

Suppresses all user prompts.

--squashed-name SQUASHED_NAME¶

Sets the name of the squashed migration. When omitted, the name is based on the first and last migration, with _squashed_ in between.

--no-header¶

Generate squashed migration file without Django version and timestamp header.

startapp¶

django-admin startapp name [directory]¶

Creates a Django app directory structure for the given app name in the current directory or the given destination.

By default, the new directory contains a models.py file and other app template files. 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 TEMPLATE¶

Provides the path to a directory with a custom app template file, or a path to an uncompressed archive (.tar) or a compressed archive (.tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .tar.lzma, .tgz, .tbz2, .txz, .tlz, .zip) containing 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 repositories as zip files, you can use a URL like:

django-admin startapp --template=https://github.com/githubuser/django-app-template/archive/main.zip myapp

--extension EXTENSIONS, -e EXTENSIONS¶

Specifies which file extensions in the app template should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to py.

--name FILES, -n FILES¶

Specifies which files in the app template (in addition to those matching --extension) should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to an empty list.

--exclude DIRECTORIES, -x DIRECTORIES¶

Specifies which directories in the app template should be excluded, in addition to .git and __pycache__. If this option is not provided, directories named __pycache__ or starting with . will be excluded.

The template context used for all matching files is:

• Any option passed to the startapp command (among the command’s supported options)
• app_name – the app name as passed to the command
• app_directory – the full path of the newly created app
• camel_case_app_name – the app name in camel case format
• docs_version – the version of the documentation: 'dev' or '1.x'
• django_version – the version of Django, e.g. '2.0.3'

startproject¶

django-admin startproject name [directory]¶

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).

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 directory.

For example:

django-admin startproject myproject /Users/jezdez/Code/myproject_repo

--template TEMPLATE¶

Specifies a directory, file path, or URL of a custom project template. See the startapp --template documentation for examples and usage.

--extension EXTENSIONS, -e EXTENSIONS¶

Specifies which file extensions in the project template should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to py.

--name FILES, -n FILES¶

Specifies which files in the project template (in addition to those matching --extension) should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to an empty list.

--exclude DIRECTORIES, -x DIRECTORIES¶

Specifies which directories in the project template should be excluded, in addition to .git and __pycache__. If this option is not provided, directories named __pycache__ or starting with . will be excluded.

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'
• django_version – the version of Django, e.g. '2.0.3'

Please also see the rendering warning and trusted code warning as mentioned for startapp.

test¶

django-admin test [test_label [test_label ...]]¶

Runs tests for all installed apps. See Testing in Django for more information.

--failfast¶

Stops running tests and reports the failure immediately after a test fails.

--testrunner TESTRUNNER¶

Controls the test runner class that is used to execute tests. This value overrides the value provided by the TEST_RUNNER setting.

--noinput, --no-input¶

Suppresses all user prompts. A typical prompt is a warning about deleting an existing test database.

$ python -m pip install tblib

testserver¶

django-admin testserver [fixture [fixture ...]]¶

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 fixtures. (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 database.

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 “pristine” 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 ADDRPORT¶

Specifies 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 demonstrate 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

--noinput, --no-input¶

Suppresses all user prompts. A typical prompt is a warning about deleting an existing test database.

django.contrib.auth¶

django-admin changepassword ringo

django.contrib.contenttypes¶

django.contrib.gis¶

django.contrib.sessions¶

django.contrib.staticfiles¶

Syntax coloring¶

DJANGO_COLORS¶

The django-admin / manage.py commands will use pretty color-coded output 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 unless the --force-color option is used.

export DJANGO_COLORS="light"

export DJANGO_COLORS="error=yellow/blue,blink;notice=magenta"

export DJANGO_COLORS="light;error=yellow/blue,blink;notice=magenta"

Bash completion¶

If you use the Bash shell, consider installing the Django bash completion script, which lives in extras/django_bash_completion in the Django source 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 How to create custom django-admin commands for how to add customized actions.

Black formatting¶

The Python files created by startproject, startapp, optimizemigration, makemigrations, and squashmigrations are formatted using the black command if it is present on your PATH.

If you have black globally installed, but do not wish it used for the current project, you can set the PATH explicitly:

PATH=path/to/venv/bin django-admin makemigrations

For commands using stdout you can pipe the output to black if needed:

django-admin inspectdb | black -