reading file in a django view function

Question

EDITED in response to comments and answers:

I am new to django and web development and I feel like I'm missing something basic about how to use django views.

I have a django app that I set up following the instructions in the django tutorial: here. Specifically, I end up with the autogenerated directory and file structure described there:

mysite/
  manage.py
  settings.py
  urls.py
  myapp/
    models.py
    views.py
    templates/
      *.html
    static/
      *.css

In my app I receive some user input from a template form and save it in my model in a function in views.py.

Before doing this I want to run some functions to check the input - depending on what it is I decide whether or not and where to put it in the database and also what content to display to the user next.

For example, one thing I want to do is check whether the words that were input are in the dictionary. I have a word list in a text file and I want to check whether the words from the input are in that list.

I want to be able to do something like:

wordlist = set(w.strip() for w in open(filename).readlines())

Where should I put this text file and how can I refer to it (in order to open it) in views.py? Where should I put that line of code - is there a way to only make this set once and then access it whenever any user submits input?

Note that I tried just putting the text file in myapp/ and then doing open(filename) but I get an error:

IOError No such file or directory.

I also tried to put the file in static/ and then do open(STATIC_URL + filename) but I get an error:

NameError Name 'STATIC_URL' is not defined.

However I do have from django.contrib import staticfiles so it should be defined.

Can you post your current code that doesn't work? This way when someone explains it, it will be easier for you to relate to what you are trying to do - instead of showing some other generic example. — Burhan Khalid
– Burhan Khalid, Commented Nov 4, 2013 at 6:18
btw, why don´t you save your "word dictionary" into the database? Maybe that could be more conveniant for editing and accessing the words. — Jingo
– Jingo, Commented Nov 4, 2013 at 8:44
@Jingo I am very new to this so I don't have any intuition about it. Isn't putting it into the database more "heavyweight" than what I need. Also, the word list is not strictly part of my model - I should be able to do the same thing from different apps. — David Pellow
– David Pellow, Commented Nov 4, 2013 at 14:32

Oscar Zhang · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-11 08:22:01Z

3

This is a very old post, but I was doing something similar and here is my solution of how to read text content in Django view.py

import os

def your_view_function(request):
    module_dir = os.path.dirname(__file__)   #get current directory
    file_path = os.path.join(module_dir, 'data.txt')   #full path to text.
    data_file = open(file_path , 'rb')   #I used'rb' here since I got an 'gbk' decode error
    data = data_file.read()
    # print("data=", data)
    return whatever_you_need

answered Apr 11, 2020 at 8:22

Oscar Zhang

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Daniel Roseman · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-04 09:21:08Z

0

Django is just Python. There are no special rules about accessing files in Django, you do it just as you would with any other Python script.

You don't give any examples or reason why open(filename) doesn't work. Assuming filename is an absolute path, and that the user that Django is running as has permission to open the file, it should definitely work. (Although note that relying on opening a file may not be the best design when it comes to a multi-user web site.)

answered Nov 4, 2013 at 9:21

Daniel Roseman

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2 Comments

David Pellow Over a year ago

edited with more information. Could you give more specifics as I am very new to djagno. For example, if it is just the same as python why doesn't putting the file in the same directory and using open(filename) work - why would it need to be an absolute path? Also, part of the question is where to put the file - where should the absolute path be to? I assume it should be somewhere that I can access using one of the paths defined in settings.py but I could be wrong about that. What do I need to include to access those definitions in settings.py?

David Pellow Over a year ago

Also, could you give an example of what else I could do instead of opening a file to accomplish this? I was thinking of creating the set and then pickleing it? Is that a better option? Is there a standard way to do this sort of thing in django that I'm missing?

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