Question

Working on the Django tutorial at the moment and got this error when I tried:

python manage.py syncdb

Using sqlite3

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 443, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 382, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 196, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 232, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 371, in handle
    return self.handle_noargs(**options)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 57, in handle_noargs
    cursor = connection.cursor()
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/__init__.py", line 306, in cursor
    cursor = self.make_debug_cursor(self._cursor())
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/sqlite3/base.py", line 281, in _cursor
    self._sqlite_create_connection()
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/sqlite3/base.py", line 271, in _sqlite_create_connection
    self.connection = Database.connect(**kwargs)
sqlite3.OperationalError: unable to open database file

My settings.py file reads:

        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
        'NAME': '/Users/username/django_tutorial/mysite', 

Anyone know the problem here? it seems like I am putting in the complete file directory, but the databases still couldn’t be created? ):

Answer 1

You should use the path to the file, including the file name:

    'NAME': '/Users/username/django_tutorial/mysite/data.sqlite', 

You can also just give it the file name:

    'NAME': 'data.sqlite',

In that case it will be created in the same directory than the one from which you run manage.py.

The best practice is to pass an absolute path, but to ensure this absolute path is created relatively to the settings file. E.G:

import os

SETTINGS_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

Then latter:

    'NAME': os.path.join(SETTINGS_DIR, 'data.sqlite'),

Remember that the settings file is a Python file, and that you can use Python code in it.