When should you use django-admin.py versus manage.py?

Question

Background:

When I run the django-admin.py loaddata example.json I get this error. "ImportError: Settings cannot be imported, because environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE is undefined." I understand the problem. It needs the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE to be able to access the database to do this import. I've had this problem before and I've managed to side step it thus far.

In reading the docs, I discovered that the manage.py is a wrapper for django-admin.py; it puts the project on the sys.path and sets the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment. Woot! Whoa! I know how to fix my problem.

Soo... Why do the Django documentation code examples use django-admin.py instead of manage.py when demonstrating subcommands such as loaddata and dumpdata?

Answer 1

If your DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable is set, you can use django-admin.py from any working directory, whereas you need to be in the project directory to use ./manage.py (or have it in your path).

Use virtualenv, and have DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE set by bin/activate, and then you can use django-admin.py.

Answer 2

Why do the Django documentation code examples using django-admin.py instead of manage.py when demonstrating subcommands such as loaddata and dumpdata?

Well, because these scripts are the same in priciple, with the differences, you already mentioned. The Django docs also mention

django-admin.py <subcommand> [options] manage.py <subcommand> [options] 

side by side. Usually you use django-admin.py to start a new project or application and manage.py to do the rest.