error of collectstatic for AttributeError: 'Path' object has no attribute 'startswith'

Question: Why I have to use root property of Path instance?

1. First try

# settings.py
STATIC_ROOT = root.path('collected_static/')
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    root.path("web/static"),
    ("components", root.path("bower_components/")),
]

then, run collectstatic command print out:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./manage.py", line 12, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 353, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 345, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 195, in fetch_command
    klass = load_command_class(app_name, subcommand)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 40, in load_command_class
    return module.Command()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 32, in __init__
    self.storage.path('')
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 204, in inner
    self._setup()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/storage.py", line 394, in _setup
    self._wrapped = get_storage_class(settings.STATICFILES_STORAGE)()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/storage.py", line 39, in __init__
    *args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/files/storage.py", line 185, in __init__
    self.location = abspathu(self.base_location)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/lib/python3.5/posixpath.py", line 357, in abspath
    if not isabs(path):
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/lib/python3.5/posixpath.py", line 64, in isabs
    return s.startswith(sep)
AttributeError: 'Path' object has no attribute 'startswith'

when I print out STATICFILES_DIRS

[<Path:/Users/raccoony/smartstudy/box/web/static>, ('components', <Path:/Users/raccoony/smartstudy/box/bower_components>)]

not path strings but Path instaces.

2. so I tried root property

# settings.py (modeified)
STATIC_ROOT = root.path('collected_static/').root
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    root.path("web/static").root,
    ("components", root.path("bower_components/").root),
]

then, run collectstatic will be:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./manage.py", line 12, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 353, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 345, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 195, in fetch_command
    klass = load_command_class(app_name, subcommand)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 40, in load_command_class
    return module.Command()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 32, in __init__
    self.storage.path('')
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 204, in inner
    self._setup()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/storage.py", line 394, in _setup
    self._wrapped = get_storage_class(settings.STATICFILES_STORAGE)()
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/storage.py", line 37, in __init__
    check_settings(base_url)
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/utils.py", line 58, in check_settings
    (settings.MEDIA_ROOT == settings.STATIC_ROOT)):
  File "/Users/raccoony/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/envs/box/lib/python3.5/site-packages/environ/environ.py", line 670, in __eq__
    return self.__root__ == other.__root__
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute '__root__'

3. I used root property to MEDIA_ROOT too.

# settings.py (2nd modified)
STATIC_ROOT = root.path('collected_static/').root
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    root.path("web/static").root,
    ("components", root.path("bower_components/").root),
]

MEDIA_ROOT = root.path("media").root

then, collectstatic runs without error.

[sergeyklay]

I’m not super familiar with this package and why it has its own pathlib-alike (guessing it pre-dates py3?), but I think I’d suggest removing it since it appears to have bugs and (probably?) isn’t necessary anymore. Instead, we could pretty easily, I think, migrate people to pathlib in their settings, though that’d be a backwards incompatible change.

This is on my plans, but right now I don’t have enough time for that. I’ll try to return to this topic a bit later

[mlissner]

I ran into this bug too. I haven’t read all of environ’s source code, but for us this happened because we had a setting configured using env.Path, and then we had it overridden in a django test via a decorator, like so:

@override_settings(
    MEDIA_ROOT=os.path.join(settings.INSTALL_ROOT, "cl/assets/media/test/")
)

Something about that combination made the built in env.path thing try to compare one of its Path objects with a str, which failed, as in the first comment.

The solution, which you can see here was to not use environ’s path objects, and instead rely on pathlib.

I’m not super familiar with this package and why it has its own pathlib-alike (guessing it pre-dates py3?), but I think I’d suggest removing it since it appears to have bugs and (probably?) isn’t necessary anymore. Instead, we could pretty easily, I think, migrate people to pathlib in their settings, though that’d be a backwards incompatible change.