Django: Is there a way to keep the dev server from restarting when a local .py file is changed and dynamically loaded?

Question

In Django (1.9) trying to load .py files (modules) dynamically (via importlib). The dynamic reload is working like a charm, but every time I reload a module, the dev server restarts, having to reload everything else.

I'm pulling in a lot of outside data (xml) for testing purposes, and every time the environment restarts, it has to reload all of this external xml data. I want to be able to reload a module only, and keep that already loaded xml data intact, so that it doesn't have to go through that process every time I change some py-code.

Is there a flag I can set/toggle (or any other method) to keep the server from restarting the whole process for this single module reload?

Any help very appreciated.

Answer 1

If you run the development server using --noreload parameter it will not auto reload the changes:

python manage.py runserver --noreload 

Disables the auto-reloader. This means any Python code changes you make while the server is running will not take effect if the particular Python modules have already been loaded into memory.