id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
12428	Projects created with django-admin.py startproject no longer run if no databases have been configured	simon	nobody	"{{{
(ve)simon $ ./manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8003
Validating models...
Unhandled exception in thread started by <function inner_run at 0x1363c30>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File ""/Users/simon/Development/django_signed_demo/ve/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/runserver.py"", line 48, in inner_run
    self.validate(display_num_errors=True)
  File ""/Users/simon/Development/django_signed_demo/ve/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py"", line 249, in validate
    num_errors = get_validation_errors(s, app)
  File ""/Users/simon/Development/django_signed_demo/ve/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/validation.py"", line 22, in get_validation_errors
    from django.db import models, connection
  File ""/Users/simon/Development/django_signed_demo/ve/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/__init__.py"", line 74, in <module>
    connection = connections[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS]
  File ""/Users/simon/Development/django_signed_demo/ve/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/utils.py"", line 73, in __getitem__
    backend = load_backend(db['ENGINE'])
  File ""/Users/simon/Development/django_signed_demo/ve/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/utils.py"", line 20, in load_backend
    return import_module('.base', backend_name)
  File ""/Users/simon/Development/django_signed_demo/ve/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/utils/importlib.py"", line 35, in import_module
    __import__(name)
ValueError: Empty module name
}}}

The problem is that ""django-admin.py startproject"" creates a new project with the following in the settings file:

{{{
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.',
         ...
}}}

Django then chokes on the invalid ENGINE setting.

Brand new projects should work without needing the database to be manually configured, since some projects don't use a database at all."		closed	Database layer (models, ORM)	dev		fixed			Unreviewed	1	0	0	1	0	0