using the shell in Django

Question

I am a newbie in Django un I want to write a Test for Django Web-poll application (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/intro/tutorial01/)

but I got this error:

devuser@localhost:~/Django-apps/poolApp$ django-admin shell --plain --no-startup
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/usr/local/bin/django-admin", line 9, in <module>
 load_entry_point('Django==1.8.3', 'console_scripts', 'django-admin')()
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 338, in execute_from_command_line
 utility.execute()
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 330, in execute
 self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/core/management/base.py", line 405, in run_from_argv
 connections.close_all()
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/db/utils.py", line 258, in close_all
 for alias in self:
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/db/utils.py", line 252, in __iter__
 return iter(self.databases)
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/utils/functional.py", line 60, in __get__
 res = instance.__dict__[self.name] = self.func(instance)
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/db/utils.py", line 151, in databases
 self._databases = settings.DATABASES
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/conf/__init__.py", line 48, in __getattr__
 self._setup(name)
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Django-1.8.3-py2.7.egg/django/conf/__init__.py", line 42, in _setup
 % (desc, ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE))
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Requested setting DATABASES, but settings are not configured. You must either define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure() before accessing settings.

I would like to know what is the best approach to do it:

define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure()

• circuitBurn: Did you set up a database? docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/intro/tutorial01/#database-setup

Answer 1

Use manage.py, not django-admin.

Answer 2

What does work is using

django-admin shell --plain --no-startup --pythonpath "." --settings "myproject.settings"

while you are in the root of your django app.

However manage.py shell (or the amazing shell_plus from django_extensions https://github.com/django-extensions/django-extensions) is recommended instead