DjangoKit help?

Originally posted Jun 19, 2007 · 5 min read

I spent a little time last night trying to assemble an application using DjangoKit without much success.

I’m running Python 2.5 on a PowerBook with Mac OS 10.4. I downloaded and installed PyObjC from source so it would compile (I thought) against the right version of Python, then installed DjangoKit using python setup.py install. Everything seemed to be working, and I was able to build an application. But when I ran that app, it produced an error about the version of the SQLite libraries being used (2 instead of 3) and missing libraries.

I gave up on Python 2.5, re-installed PyObjC and DjangoKit for 2.4 and tried again. Same error.

Just for grins, I copied the app over to my wife’s laptop (she has a MacBook Pro). The result was, of course, a new error about the platform. No universal binaries? Really?

I’m sure there are options, or something, that I’m leaving out when I build the app. This was mostly an experiment, and I was in a hurry, so I gave up easily and just installed the django code I wanted on an existing (Linux) web server and let her use that instead of messing with a desktop application.

Has anyone else had more success building portable Python apps, esp. with django, on Mac OS X?

Updated

Of course I knew better than to post in frustration when I posted this originally. In my haste, I didn’t post sample code, the error message, or much of the rest of the information I would have wanted if I was the DjangoKit author trying to help someone out. Nonetheless, Tom did some digging anyway and offered suggestions. Others did as well. Thanks! I finally found time to follow up, and am coming closer to an answer.

Here are the full details

The application is very, very simple. The model just contains 2 classes for creating an index of a pile of Cook’s Illustrated magazine we have laying around the house. There is no front-end, since the admin views already provide the functionality she wanted. I thought I would be cute and bundle it as a desktop app for Ms. PyMOTW, instead of setting the app up on my web server. I have packaged the sample code and placed it on my server.

I have included 2 separate setup.py files (setup.py and djangokit_setup.py). I couldn’t package the source using the DjangoKit version of setup:

$ python djangokit_setup.py sdist --force-manifest
Loading 'initial_data' fixtures...
No fixtures found.
running sdist
warning: sdist: missing required meta-data: name, url
warning: sdist: manifest template 'MANIFEST.in' does not exist (using default file list)
error: dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5: File name too long

I only seem to get the error if my dist directory includes the application, too. Otherwise I get a minimal package with the name ‘UNKNOWN’. So, the tarball was packaged with a regular distutils setup.py. That’s not a big problem, since it is easy to use separate files.

When I ran python djangokit_setup.py py2app, the first time it reported this error:

*** creating application bundle: Cook's Illustrated Index ***
error: can't copy 'media': doesn't exist or not a regular file

I eventually figured out (guessed) that even though I don’t have any external media, I need a media directory at the same level in the directory tree as the setup file. Creating the directory let me create the app. Running that app gives me this traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/dhellmann/Devel/personal/CooksIndex/trunk/dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Resources/__boot__.py", line 31, in
    _run('app.py')
  File "/Users/dhellmann/Devel/personal/CooksIndex/trunk/dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Resources/__boot__.py", line 28, in _run
    execfile(path, globals(), globals())
  File "/Users/dhellmann/Devel/personal/CooksIndex/trunk/dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Resources/app.py", line 9, in
    from pysqlite2 import dbapi2 as sqlite
ImportError: No module named pysqlite2

That brings the error reporting up to date, without trying any of the suggestions in the comments, yet. As I mentioned, the code itself works if I run django outside of the packaged application (from the command line, etc.). So I’m confident that my own imports are valid, etc.

Based on a hint from Tom (in the comments, he suggests that I install pysqlite2), I tried editing the app.py file created inside the application to import from sqlite3 instead of sqlite2. Editing the file directly didn’t do it. Editing the copy already in my application changed the error message to:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/dhellmann/Devel/personal/CooksIndex/trunk/dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Resources/__boot__.py", line 31, in
    _run('app.py')
  File "/Users/dhellmann/Devel/personal/CooksIndex/trunk/dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Resources/__boot__.py", line 28, in _run
    execfile(path, globals(), globals())
  File "/Users/dhellmann/Devel/personal/CooksIndex/trunk/dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Resources/app.py", line 10, in
    from sqlite3 import dbapi2 as sqlite
ImportError: No module named sqlite3

Next I tried editing the version of app.py in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/site-packages/djangokit. After removing the application and rebuilding, I see the same error.

So I finally broke down and installed the pysqlte2 package Tom pointed out for me. The package seems to imply that it is for Python 2.4, and I’m running 2.5, but I installed it anyway.

The application Packaged with python 2.5 gave me “No module named pysqlite2” when I ran it. Repackaged using “python2.4 djangokit_setup.py py2app”, I got the app to run but it does not seem to actually work. The console log shows this:

2007-06-23 15:07:28.403 Cook's Illustrated Index[14739] creating support folder /Users/dhellmann/Library/Application Support/DjangoKit/CooksIndex
2007-06-23 15:07:28.405 Cook's Illustrated Index[14739] installing default database
Starting web server on port 10557
Unhandled exception in thread started by
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/dhellmann/Devel/personal/CooksIndex/trunk/dist/Cook's Illustrated Index.app/Contents/Resources/app.py", line 81, in startWebServer
    handler = AdminMediaHandler(WSGIHandler(), path)
TypeError: __init__() takes exactly 2 arguments (3 given)

So, I am a lot closer but not quite where I would like to be. I don’t really care whether I package under 2.4 or 2.5, so long as the result runs on my wife’s laptop, which doesn’t have any development packages installed.