ImportError: No module named django_filters

Question

I am using Django 1.7.1 and I pip installed django-filters to my virtual env at /.virtualenvs/auction2/lib/python2.7/site-packages$

It said it was installed successfully.

So I placed django-filters in installed apps like so:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'crispy_forms',
    'django_filters',
    'donations',
)

I ran python manage.py runserver and got this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Users/Dani/.virtualenvs/auction2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 385, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/Users/Dani/.virtualenvs/auction2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 354, in execute
    django.setup()
  File "/Users/Dani/.virtualenvs/auction2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/__init__.py", line 21, in setup
    apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS)
  File "/Users/Dani/.virtualenvs/auction2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/apps/registry.py", line 85, in populate
    app_config = AppConfig.create(entry)
  File "/Users/Dani/.virtualenvs/auction2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/apps/config.py", line 87, in create
    module = import_module(entry)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
ImportError: No module named django_filters

It said it installed, but why can't it import it? I have another package, crispy-forms, installed and working. I looked at my site packages on the virtual environment and I saw:

crispy_forms
django
django_braces-1.4.0.dist-info
django_crispy_forms-1.4.0-py2.7.egg-info
django_filters-0.1.0-py2.7.egg-info
easy_install.py
easy_install.pyc
filters
pip

Seeing that it goes in as 'filters' instead of what the documentation says to import it as (django_filters), I thought I'd try changing it to just 'filters' in installed_apps.

I stoped and started the runserver, no problem, so I began building my filter in filter.py:

import django_filters
from donations.models import Donor, Item, Issue

class DonorFilter(django_filters.FilterSet):
    class Meta:
        model = Donor
        fields = {'type':['exact'],'donor':['icontains'],}

        def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
            super(DonorFilter, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
            self.filters['type'].extra.update(
                {'empty_label': 'All Types'})

I stop and start the runserver, no problem. Then I start adding a view and just the import statement at views.py:

from donations.filters import DonorFilter

gives me the same ImportError: No module named django_filters. error.

I tried changing the import in my filters.py to filters rather than django_filters and the errors didn't change. I changed everything back to django_filters (in installed_apps and my filters.py) as the documentation says to do, I get the error global name 'DonorFilter' is not defined when I add the view. Here is the view.py:

def donor_list(request):
    f = DonorFilter(request.GET, queryset=Donor.objects.all())
    return render_to_response('donations/donor_list', {'filter': f})

That means I need to import the function I created in filters.py? So I add from donations.filters import DonorFilter to the top of my view. Then the error is 'module' object has no attribute 'FilterSet'

I can see the FilterSet class in the filters.py file installed in my virtualenv

I noticed there is more development on django-filter, the https://github.com/alex/django-filter page goes up to v0.9.2, but pip installs 0.1.0. Should I be installing it another way (other than pip)?

I'm very new at this and appreciate any help!

Answer 1

My pip version was old, really old. 1.5.6 When I installed my virtual environment it just worked, so I didn't question. Lesson learned! Here is what I did in case it helps someone else...

In the virtual environment, I installed pip as described in the docs: https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing.html python get-pip.py This upgraded me to pip 6.1.1

pip install django-filter
pip freeze > requirements.txt

Reading requirements.txt showed I had

django-filter==0.9.2
django-filters==0.1.0

So I uninstalled the older version with pip uninstall django-filters

notice the s on the older version but not on the new one

Really basic stuff but it really tripped me up. Thanks to anyone who took time to look into this!