Ticket #16247: 16247.diff

docs/releases/1.4.txt

@@ -363 +363 @@
 Some legacy ways of calling :func:`~django.views.decorators.cache.cache_page`
 have been deprecated, please see the docs for the correct way to use this
 decorator.
+
+Wildcard expansion of application names in `INSTALLED_APPS`
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Until Django 1.3, :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` accepted wildcards in application
+names, like ``django.contrib.*``. The expansion was performed by a crude
+filesystem-based implementation of ``from <package> import *``. Unfortunately,
+`this can't be done reliably`_.
+
+This behavior was never documented. Since it is prone to unexpected
+side-effects, un-pythonic and not obviously useful, it was removed in Django
+1.4. If you relied on it, you must edit your settings file to list all your
+applications explicitly.
+
+.. _this can't be done reliably: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/modules.html#importing-from-a-package

django/conf/__init__.py

@@ -99 +99 @@
                     setting_value = (setting_value,) # In case the user forgot the comma.
                 setattr(self, setting, setting_value)
 
-        # Expand entries in INSTALLED_APPS like "django.contrib.*" to a list
-        # of all those apps.
-        new_installed_apps = []
-        for app in self.INSTALLED_APPS:
-            if app.endswith('.*'):
-                app_mod = importlib.import_module(app[:-2])
-                appdir = os.path.dirname(app_mod.__file__)
-                app_subdirs = os.listdir(appdir)
-                app_subdirs.sort()
-                name_pattern = re.compile(r'[a-zA-Z]\w*')
-                for d in app_subdirs:
-                    if name_pattern.match(d) and os.path.isdir(os.path.join(appdir, d)):
-                        new_installed_apps.append('%s.%s' % (app[:-2], d))
-            else:
-                new_installed_apps.append(app)
-        self.INSTALLED_APPS = new_installed_apps
-
         if hasattr(time, 'tzset') and self.TIME_ZONE:
             # When we can, attempt to validate the timezone. If we can't find
             # this file, no check happens and it's harmless.