Before running Django with Anaconda, let’s discuss some terms that will be helpful for understanding this blog post in-depth.
Django
Django is the most popular free and open-source Python Web framework that believes in the development of the website on the go. Django provides lots of built-in features(such as admin panel, SQLite, model managers, etc.) which helps developers to focus on the core content of their app. Most popular IT companies in the world like Disqus, Instagram, Spotify, Youtube, and others used Django (Click link for more info).
Anaconda
Anaconda is an open-source distribution of the Python and R programming languages developed by Anaconda, Inc. for scientific computing. Here in this blog, we will be going to use conda package manager which manages the package versions in Anaconda. If you have not installed Anaconda on your pc yet follow instructions by clicking here.
Problems running Django with Pip
Pip is the python package manager which is already included in the python installer used in installing packages from the Python Package Index, PyPI. Pip package management processes are hectic as we can’t able to manage packages for a particular app in Django. It has no built-in support for environments so have to depend on tools like virtualenv or venv to create isolated environments.
Alternatively, to solve packages collisions in Pip, conda will be beneficial for the package manager which comes along with the environment manager. So that we don’t have to depend upon other environments like Pip.
To know more about pip and conda differences click here
Note: We can use pip commands inside conda environments but vice versa is not true.
Run Django in a conda environment
I hope all set up were done, now let’s run Django in a conda environment.
Step 1:
Create a new environment named django_env with a specific version of python inside your working directory. I am working on my django_project directory inside the Desktop folder on a Windows computer.
Note: If we do not mention any python version, then the environment will be created with the latest version available.
Command line
C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop>mkdir django_project C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop>cd django_project C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\django_project>conda create --name django_env python=3.8
It will take some time to download packages.
While creating an environment where you will be asked to Proceed ([y]/n)
Enter ‘y’ and continue.
The following NEW packages will be INSTALLED: ca-certificates pkgs/main/win-64::ca-certificates-2020.6.24-0 certifi pkgs/main/win-64::certifi-2020.6.20-py38_0 openssl pkgs/main/win-64::openssl-1.1.1g-he774522_0 pip pkgs/main/win-64::pip-20.1.1-py38_1 python pkgs/main/win-64::python-3.8.3-he1778fa_0 setuptools pkgs/main/win-64::setuptools-47.3.1-py38_0 sqlite pkgs/main/win-64::sqlite-3.32.3-h2a8f88b_0 vc pkgs/main/win-64::vc-14.1-h0510ff6_4 vs2015_runtime pkgs/main/win-64::vs2015_runtime-14.16.27012-hf0eaf9b_2 wheel pkgs/main/win-64::wheel-0.34.2-py38_0 wincertstore pkgs/main/win-64::wincertstore-0.2-py38_0 zlib pkgs/main/win-64::zlib-1.2.11-h62dcd97_4
As we can see the pip package is also installed in our newly created environment.
Step 2:
Now its time to activate the newly created Conda environment
Command line
C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\django_project>conda activate django_env (django_env) C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\django_project>
django_env inside the parenthesis denotes that the environment is activated.
Step 3:
Up to the point we created and activated the environment in our working directory. Now we install Django package in django_env.
Command line
(django_env) C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\django_project>conda install -c anaconda django
It will take time to install Django with other necessary packages.
The following NEW packages will be INSTALLED: asgiref anaconda/noarch::asgiref-3.2.7-py_0 django anaconda/noarch::django-3.0.3-py_0 pytz anaconda/noarch::pytz-2020.1-py_0 sqlparse anaconda/noarch::sqlparse-0.3.1-py_0
Step 4:
Create a new Django project called mysite making sure to include the period “.” at the end of the command so that it is installed in our current directory.
Command line
(django_env) C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\django_project>django-admin startproject mysite .
(django_env) C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\django_project>tree /F
Folder PATH listing
Volume serial number is E206-9EEA
C:.
| manage.py
|
|---mysite
asgi.py
settings.py
urls.py
wsgi.py
__init__.py
Our working directory should look like this after creating mysite project.
Step 5:
We successfully created our project now let’s run it on the local development server.
Command line
(django_env) C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\django_project>python manage.py runserver
Step 6:
Now open your favorite browser and type address 127.0.0.1:8000 and see the magic.
To exit from the local development server press ‘Ctrl+c’ in your terminal.
Some Useful conda Commands:
- To deactivate the current environment
conda deactivate
- To see the installed packages list
conda list
- To see the all conda environment lists
conda env list
- To remove the just created environment
conda env remove –n django_env
For conda cheat sheet click here
Conclusion
In this blog, we were successful to run Django with a conda environment.
Happy coding 🙂
