[python] How to execute a Python script from the Django shell?

I need to execute a Python script from the Django shell. I tried:

./manage.py shell << my_script.py

But it didn't work. It was just waiting for me to write something.

If you want to run in in BG even better:

nohup echo 'exec(open("my_script.py").read())' | python manage.py shell &

The output will be in nohup.out

runscript from django-extensions

python manage.py runscript scripty.py

A sample script.py to test it out:

from django.contrib.auth.models import User
print(User.objects.values())

Mentioned at: http://django-extensions.readthedocs.io/en/latest/command_extensions.html and documented at:

python manage.py runscript --help

There is a tutorial too.

Tested on Django 1.9.6, django-extensions 1.6.7.

You're not recommended to do that from the shell - and this is intended as you shouldn't really be executing random scripts from the django environment (but there are ways around this, see the other answers).

If this is a script that you will be running multiple times, it's a good idea to set it up as a custom command ie

 $ ./manage.py my_command

to do this create a file in a subdir of management and commands of your app, ie

my_app/
    __init__.py
    models.py
    management/
        __init__.py
        commands/
            __init__.py
            my_command.py
    tests.py
    views.py

and in this file define your custom command (ensuring that the name of the file is the name of the command you want to execute from ./manage.py)

from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand

class Command(BaseCommand):
    def handle(self, **options):
        # now do the things that you want with your models here

The django shell is the good way to execute a python module with the django environment, but it is not always easy and tiresome to import modules and execute functions manually especially without auto-completion. To resolve this, I created a small shell script "runscript.sh" that allows you to take full advantage of the auto-completion and the log history of the Linux console.

NB: Copy runscript.sh to the root project and set the execute right (chmod +x)

For example: I want to run python function named show(a, b, c) in module do_somethings.py in myapp/do_folder/

The standard django way (manage.py shell):

python3 manage.py shell
 > from myapp.do_folder import do_somethings
 > do_somethings.show("p1", "p2"  , 3.14159)

With script (runscript.sh):

./runscript.sh myapp/do_folder/do_somethings.py show p1 p2 3.14159

The script is not limited in number of arguments. However only arguments of primitive types are supported (int, float, string)

if you have not a lot commands in your script use it:

manage.py shell --command="import django; print(django.__version__)"

Django docs

Note, this method has been deprecated for more recent versions of django! (> 1.3)

An alternative answer, you could add this to the top of my_script.py

from django.core.management import setup_environ
import settings
setup_environ(settings)

and execute my_script.py just with python in the directory where you have settings.py but this is a bit hacky.

$ python my_script.py

Other way it's execute this one:

echo 'execfile("/path_to/myscript.py")' | python manage.py shell --settings=config.base

This is working on Python2.7 and Django1.9

Try this if you are using virtual enviroment :-

python manage.py shell

for using those command you must be inside virtual enviroment. for this use :-

workon vir_env_name

for example :-

dc@dc-comp-4:~/mysite$ workon jango
(jango)dc@dc-comp-4:~/mysite$ python manage.py shell
Python 2.7.6 (default, Mar 22 2014, 22:59:56) 
[GCC 4.8.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(InteractiveConsole)
>>> 

Note :- Here mysite is my website name and jango is my virtual enviroment name

For anyone using Django 1.7+, it seems that simply import the settings module is not enough.

After some digging, I found this Stack Overflow answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/23241093

You now need to:

import os, django
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "myapp.settings")
django.setup()
# now your code can go here...

Without doing the above, I was getting a django.core.exceptions.AppRegistryNoReady error.

My script file is in the same directory as my django project (ie. in the same folder as manage.py)

Late to the party. But this might be helpful for someone.

All you need is your script and django-extensions installed.

Just run the shell_plus available in django_extensions and import the script that you've written.

If your script is scpt.py and it's inside a folder fol you can run the script as follows.

python manage.py shell_plus

and just import your script inside the shell as follows.

>>> from fol import scpt

django.setup() does not seem to work.

does not seem to be required either.

this alone worked.

import os, django, glob, sys, shelve
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "myProject.settings")

If IPython is available (pip install ipython) then ./manage.py shell will automatically use it's shell and then you can use the magic command %run:

%run my_script.py

I'm late for the party but I hope that my response will help someone: You can do this in your Python script:

import sys, os
sys.path.append('/path/to/your/django/app')
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'settings'
from django.conf import settings

the rest of your stuff goes here ....

came here with the same question as the OP, and I found my favourite answer precisely in the mistake within the question, which works also in Python 3:

./manage.py shell <<EOF
import my_script
my_script.main()
EOF

Something I just found to be interesting is Django Scripts, which allows you to write scripts to be run with python manage.py runscript foobar. More detailed information on implementation and scructure can be found here, http://django-extensions.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html

If you want to execute startup script (e.g. import some django models to work with them interactively) and remain in django shell:

PYTHONSTARTUP=my_script.py python manage.py shell

import os, sys, django
os.environ["DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE"] = "settings"
sys.path.insert(0, os.getcwd())

django.setup()

As other answers indicate but don't explicitly state, what you may actually need is not necessarily to execute your script from the Django shell, but to access your apps without using the Django shell.

This differs a lot Django version to Django version. If you do not find your solution on this thread, answers here -- Django script to access model objects without using manage.py shell -- or similar searches may help you.

I had to begin my_command.py with

import os,sys
sys.path.append('/path/to/myproject')
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "config.settings.file")
import django
django.setup()

import project.app.models
#do things with my models, yay

and then ran python3 my_command.py

(Django 2.0.2)

@AtulVarma provided a very useful comment under the not-working accepted answer:

echo 'import myscript' | python manage.py shell

You can just run the script with the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable set. That's all it takes to set up Django-shell environment.

This works in Django >= 1.4