Question about django settings - installed apps

Question

When I'm adding my installed apps to the django settings file i usually do this:
python
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # my app
    'pages',
]

But Ive noticed some people doing this:
python
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # not sure about this thing
    'pages.apps.PagesConfig',
]

I'm not sure what this is - Ive never used this apps.py file before. Should I be using this?

Alex Koumparos · Accepted Answer

Hi Puffy Wuff,
What you are seeing is a newer way (since about v1.7 of Django) of declaring installed apps in your settings.py file.
You have the choice of either listing the application module (what you have been doing before) or describing a particular class that derives from AppConfig which can provide more control over the application (what you are seeing in the above example).
As far as I am aware there is no plan to deprecate the old (easier) way of declaring installed apps, so if that works for you, keep on doing it. Just be aware that the option exists to specify a specific config class that will give you some extra flexibility if you need it. Specifically:
- you can have multiple apps in the same module;
- you can specify an app configuration in a file;
- you can subclass that configuration to make different instances of the app behave differently.
If you are interested, you can read more in the official docs (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/applications/)
Cheers
Alex

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Puffy wuff

Puffy wuff

Question about django settings - installed apps

1 Answer

Alex Koumparos

Alex Koumparos