makemessages incorrectly configured as not requiring settings

[Jorge Romero]

django-admin and manage.py are supposed to be interchangeable.

From the docs(​https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/django-admin/):

The command-line examples throughout this document use django-admin to be consistent, but any example can use manage.py or python -m django just as well.

However, this doesn't seem to be true for makemessages.

If I run manage.py makemessages from the top level of the project MEDIA_ROOT and STATIC_ROOT are ignored. This isn't precisely a bug because that's what the code is intended to do (​https://github.com/django/django/blob/master/django/core/management/commands/makemessages.py#L448), but I find it strange specially for --domain djangojs because is very common for Javascript files to be put in STATIC_ROOT.

django-admin makemessages doesn't ignore MEDIA_ROOT or STATIC_ROOT and it traverses the entire source tree.

At least this should be explained in the documentation. At best both commands should do the exact same. It's very easy to be bitten by this as we don't always review the resulting *.po file.

Am I missing something here?

[Simon Charette]

Maybe the documentation should mention that --settings must be specified to django-admin and python -m django for them to be interchangeable with manage.py.

[Claude Paroz]

Currently, makemessages is explicitly whitelisted as not needing a configured settings file (see no_settings_commands in django.core.management.__init__.py.
I wonder now if we should revert that, considering the dependency of that command on settings.FILE_CHARSET, settings.LOCALE_PATHS, settings.MEDIA_ROOT, and settings.STATIC_ROOT.

[Claude Paroz]

​PR

[Claude Paroz <claude@…>]

In a6baada7:

Fixed #26940 -- Removed makemessages from no_settings_commands whitelist

As makemessages uses several settings for proper run (FILE_CHARSET,
LOCALE_PATHS, MEDIA_ROOT, and STATIC_ROOT), we should require settings
configuration for this command.

[Claude Paroz]

I'm considering reverting the fact that we require configured settings for makemessages.
I'm thinking about the use case of reusable apps, when you typically don't have/need STATIC_ROOT/MEDIA_ROOT/LOCALE_PATHS, and most of the time FILE_CHARSET in utf-8 is fine.
See ​this commit, above ​that PR.

[Claude Paroz]

Here's the ​PR.

[Claude Paroz <claude@…>]

In fa2f55c:

Refs #26940 -- Re-allowed makemessages without settings

Thanks Tim Graham for the review.

[Natalia Bidart]

There seems to be a potential regression about this in current main (6.0 development cycle). When running:

$ django-admin --version
6.0.dev20250506141140

$ django-admin makemessages --all -v 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/nessita/.venvs/djangodev-3.13/bin/django-admin", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(execute_from_command_line())
             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 442, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 436, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 416, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 460, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/core/management/commands/makemessages.py", line 372, in handle
    % get_text_list(list(self.extensions), "and")
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/utils/functional.py", line 231, in wrapper
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/utils/text.py", line 306, in get_text_list
    _(", ").join(str(i) for i in list_[:-1]),
    ~^^^^^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/utils/translation/__init__.py", line 96, in gettext
    return _trans.gettext(message)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/utils/translation/__init__.py", line 66, in __getattr__
    if settings.USE_I18N:
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/conf/__init__.py", line 75, in __getattr__
    self._setup(name)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^
  File "/home/nessita/fellowship/django/django/conf/__init__.py", line 55, in _setup
    raise ImproperlyConfigured(
    ...<4 lines>...
    )
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Requested setting USE_I18N, but settings are not configured. You must either define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure() before accessing settings.

[Claude Paroz]

Thanks for noticing, we should probably deactivate translations around the call to get_text_list.

[Natalia Bidart]

I added Lilian as cc. Lilian, do you think this small action item from the last two commetns may pair up well with the other work that is being done with translations in the context of Djangonaut Space?

[ontowhee]

Replying to Natalia Bidart:

I added Lilian as cc. Lilian, do you think this small action item from the last two commetns may pair up well with the other work that is being done with translations in the context of Djangonaut Space?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention! This would pair well, and I can share this ticket with the Djangonauts.