Configuring a Django PostgreSQL project is a straight-forward process that involves updating the settings.py file and adding one additional library (psycopg2). Depending on which IDE, OS, and Python version used there are several possible errors that can arise. We’ll address those here as well.<\/p>\n
Django comes configured to work with a local SQLite database by default, which is great for early-stage app development. Unfortunately, it’s not<\/em> great for production use or even some more stringent development tasks like concurrent I\/O. Below are the steps needed to configure a new Django project for use with a PostgreSQL database.<\/p>\n Django uses some third-party libraries by default but does not install the required libraries to support Django is designed to use a project-folder This tells Django to use a database named These steps are simple enough but can benefit from some elaboration.<\/p>\n To make Django work with Postgres, an adapter other than the default In older versions of Django, the adapter was named The PostgreSQL backend Obviously, you need to have access to a Postgres database to make this work well. You should replace the values in the above code with the database to which your project will connect.\u00a0 Common values for HOST and PORT are localhost and 5432 respectively, which 5432 being the default Postgres port, as described in the official PostgreSQL documentation.<\/a><\/p>\n While Django ships with an “adapter” for Postgres, it still needs a 3rd party library for support. If you simply add the code above and Django’s To make the Django adaptor work, the psycopg2 library needs to be installed with this command: Depending on what platform, Python version, or IDE used; psycopg2 has some known-issues when it comes to installation. The most common is a DLL error that will prevent Django from creating the required migrations:<\/p>\nDjango PostgreSQL Setup<\/h2>\n
postgres<\/code>. Here’s a look at the packages installed after a clean install of Django on a new virtual environment:<\/p>\nasgiref==3.3.1\r\nDjango==3.1.4\r\npytz==2020.4\r\nsqlparse==0.4.1<\/pre>\n
sqlite<\/code> database by default that is configured in the project\/project\/settings.py and to use the django.db.backends.sqlite3<\/code> adapter as such:<\/p>\nDATABASES = {\r\n 'default': {\r\n 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',\r\n 'NAME': BASE_DIR \/ 'db.sqlite3',\r\n }\r\n}<\/pre>\nBASE_DIR\/db.sqlite3<\/code> as the project’s database. To use a postgres<\/code> database, the following steps must happen:<\/p>\n\n
Step 1: Specify Postgres Adapter + Credentials<\/h2>\n
sqlite<\/code> adapter must be specified. I like working with the psycopg2<\/code> Postgres adaptor and have shown how to specify that adapter below:<\/p>\nDATABASES = {\r\n 'default': {\r\n 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',\r\n 'NAME': \"db_name\",\r\n 'USER': \"db_username\",\r\n 'PASSWORD': \"db_password\",\r\n 'HOST': \"db_host\",\r\n 'PORT': \"db_port\", # 5432 by default\r\n }\r\n}<\/pre>\ndjango.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2<\/code>. This was changed from release 1.9 forwards and summarized in the official release notes as such<\/a>:<\/p>\ndjango.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2<\/code>\u00a0is also available as django.db.backends.postgresql<\/code>. The old name will continue to be available for backward compatibility.<\/em><\/p>\nStep 2: Install Necessary Postgres Adaptor<\/h2>\n
run python manage.py makemigrations<\/code> you’ll get a stacktrace with the following exception:<\/p>\ndjango.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading psycopg2 module: No module named 'psycopg2'\r\n<\/pre>\n
django.db.backends.postgresql<\/code> adaptor bridges Django’s own ORM models to Postgres, but doesn’t actually provide the adaptors needed for actual Postgres usage. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, the Django Project has elected to use the psycopg2<\/a> library\u2014arguably the most popular python adapter for Postgres.<\/p>\npip install psycopg2<\/code>. Running the pip freeze command should now produce the following output:<\/p>\nasgiref==3.3.1\r\nDjango==3.1.4\r\npsycopg2==2.8.6\r\npytz==2020.4\r\nsqlparse==0.4.1\r\n<\/pre>\n
Common Issues with psycopg2<\/h3>\n
ImproperlyConfigured Exception<\/h4>\n
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading psycopg2 module: DLL load failed while importing _psycopg: The specified module could not be found.<\/pre>\n