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Create a executable Django App

Since PyInstaller 2.1, you can build an executable from a project using Django 2.1.8. PyInstaller will take care of a lot of the magic needed to correctly build Django applications. For instance, it will parse all your files and find all the dotted-names strings that refer to module names (eg: within settings.py) and make sure that all those modules are packaged.

You should be able to run PyInstaller over the manage.py script directly.

The following example should clarify the required steps.

Example

Let's say that your Django project is called mysite. If you used the django-admin.py wizard, you probably have ended up with a Django project directory structure. PyInstaller expects a directory structure like this:

mysite/
    manage.py
    mysite/
        __init__.py
        settings.py
        urls.py
        wsgi.py
        ...

Use PyInstaller:

$ pyinstaller --name=mysite mysite/manage.py

Notice the use of the --name option to make sure the output is a packaged executable called mysite and not manage from the script name.

Now you should have a frozen django app in the directory ./dist/mysite/. You should be able to see an executable file ./dist/mysite/mysite.exe. Use this file the same way as you would use manage.py.

To run the built-in Django test server run:

$ ./dist/mysite/mysite.exe runserver localhost:8000

Multiple Settings Modules

If you're using multiple settings files in your Django project, you'll need to do a bit more work to get pyinstaller to use the correct one. Say you had the following configuration:

mysite/
    manage.py
    mysite/
        __init__.py
        settings/
            __init__.py
            base.py
            development.py
            production.py
        urls.py
        wsgi.py

In this case, if you want PyInstaller to use mysite.settings.production, you should modify mysite/settings/__init__.py to include the following:

from production import *

This is required because PyInstaller only looks for settings files at two locations: either mysite/settings.py, or mysite/settings.

What if it does not work?

Django uses a lot of magic under the hood, so some quirks are expected. If the application does not run, you should see the traceback in the console. If it is an ImportError, it is probably a missing module whose dependency PyInstaller was not able to automatically discover.

The quickest workaround is to add an import statement for that module, for instance in the manage.py script. But please report the incident to the mailing list so that we can prepare a proper fix that everyone can benefit from.

If this does not help, have a look at [[How to Report Bugs#before-submitting-a-report-make-sure-everything-is-packaged]] to track down the problem.

References