Django project file structure

Question

I'm new to Django and need to understand file structure. below is an example of my Django project (some files missing)

My confusing is to do with production on a real server and how my file structure relates.

I have the following questions on this issue which I think if answered will help me understand.

Where is the web root?
How do you stop users from downloading settings.py?

Its this structure ok?

project
  manage.py 
  templates [folder]
  myapp1 [folder]
   models.py
   views.py
  projectname [folder]
   urls.py
   settings.py

Yuji 'Tomita' Tomita · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-07 21:59:00Z

5

There is no web root. Django project files can be placed anywhere for a web server to run and serve at a given URL. URL's do not correspond to file structure.

Django should never be exposed to the public. You stop users from downloading it by not exposing it to the public. Only static media should ever be accessible from the web.

Yes, your structure is okay. That's the recommended new standard.

answered Dec 7, 2012 at 21:59

Yuji 'Tomita' Tomita

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4 Comments

Prometheus Over a year ago

wow its hard for me to get my head around not having a doc root

Yuji 'Tomita' Tomita Over a year ago

Well think about it this way - it's a python program that receives paths as arguments, and decides what to spit back, what to execute, etc.

Prometheus Over a year ago

so templates are ok to be outside the app folders? or should each app have there own?

Yuji 'Tomita' Tomita Over a year ago

Typical django recommendation: a global templates dir, as defined in TEMPLATE_DIRS. Application specific templates in appname/templates/appname/ to be pulled automatically from the default TEMPLATE_LOADERS which parses INSTALLED_APPS for a folder called templates

dm03514 · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-07 21:57:59Z

With mod_wsgi you don't need to declare a Document Root, you just give a path to your wsgi file

a sample apache mod_wsgi configuration from the docs:

WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/mysite.com/mysite/wsgi.py
WSGIPythonPath /path/to/mysite.com

<Directory /path/to/mysite.com/mysite>
<Files wsgi.py>
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
</Files>
</Directory>

Users cannot access settings.py apache does not serve it. Make sure debug=False though as it can expose your settings

Your structure is the default django structure from 1.4+

acjay · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-07 22:08:19Z

1

Just to add another perspective, your URLconf, contained in urls.py, defines the virtual filesystem, if you will, of your web root. It's up your URLconf scheme to route entire classes of URLs to your views, which generate dynamic pages. So in a sense, with a handful of URL entries, views, and templates, you can make it appear as though you have a web root with populated with countless "files", none of which are your actual Python source code.

answered Dec 7, 2012 at 22:08

acjay

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