google app engine path in linux?

Question

I'm starting to learn googleapp engine and use python. Whenever i create a new project, should i always include whole bunch of configuration and python files like these,

abhilash@abhilash:~/python_resources/google_appengine$ ls
appcfg.py  bulkload_client.py  demos             google  LICENSE               README         remote_api_shell.py  tools
BUGS       bulkloader.py       dev_appserver.py  lib     new_project_template  RELEASE_NOTES  templates            VERSION

Can i put the dev_appserver.py and others to /bin/bash, so i could use them whenever i create a project? Or how to setup appengine permanently in my workplace?

Answer 1

A new GAE project doesn't need any of those files.
Per the Getting Started Guide, all you need is app.yaml and main.py.

If your goal is less command-line typing you can add the google_appengine dir to your PATH in your .bashrc, e.g.

export PATH=$HOME/google_appengine:$PATH

You'll also want to create a symlink to python2.5, like so:

ln -s /usr/bin/python2.5 ~/google_appengine/python

Then you can just do this to run your app on the development server:

$ dev_appserver.py /path/to/myapp/

Answer 2

Also it might be useful to add app engine to your python path as well.

Like so for me that I prefer to keep app engine in /usr/local/

export GAE="/usr/local/google_appengine"
export PYTHONPATH="$PYTHONPATH:$GAE"
export PATH="$PATH:$GAE"

This might come in handy if for example you want to use some of the libraries to run tests on an external module source and so on...