pip install fails with missing `setuptools.command` error

Explanation of the problem

When attempting to install or upgrade the drfdocs package using pip on both a Mac running OS X 10.11.5 and a Ubuntu 14.04 machine, the user encountered the following stack trace:

[ubuntu@SEA] pip install --upgrade drfdocs
Downloading/unpacking drfdocs from https://pypi.python.org/packages/e5/9e/3a9aa6908ad7bd95b46f7fe05256681f4101de9a7769b6928159a986ef61/drfdocs-0.0.11.tar.gz#md5=ae42aba1e598ac110de74bdad0f3d3f4
  Downloading drfdocs-0.0.11.tar.gz (771kB): 771kB downloaded
  Running setup.py (path:<VIRTUAL_ENV_PATH>/build/drfdocs/setup.py) egg_info for package drfdocs
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 3, in <module>
    ImportError: No module named setuptools.command
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<string>", line 3, in <module>

ImportError: No module named setuptools.command

----------------------------------------
Cleaning up...

The error suggests that there is an ImportError with the message “No module named setuptools.command”. This error occurs while running the setup.py script for the drfdocs package. It seems that the required setuptools.command module is missing.

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Problem solution for: pip install fails with missing `setuptools.command` error

To resolve this issue, ensure that the setuptools package is installed in your Python environment. You can install it using pip with the following command:

pip install setuptools

Once setuptools is installed, retry the installation or upgrade of the drfdocs package using pip. This should resolve the ImportError and allow you to successfully install or upgrade drfdocs.

It’s worth noting that this issue seems specific to the drfdocs package and may not occur with other pip modules. It is possible that the issue lies in the setup configuration of drfdocs or in some other setup-related aspect.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'rest_framework_docs',
    ...
]

2. Include the URL patterns for django-rest-framework-docs in your project’s urls.py file:

from rest_framework_docs import urls as drf_docs_urls

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('docs/', include(drf_docs_urls)),
    ...
]

After making these configuration changes, restart your Django server and access the API documentation page. The documentation should now be generated and displayed correctly.

Problem 2:

Another common problem with django-rest-framework-docs is the inability to authenticate or access secured APIs when using token-based authentication. The API documentation page may not provide an option to include the required authentication token, resulting in failed requests to secure endpoints.

To address this issue, you can manually include the authentication token in the HTTP headers of the request. Here’s an example of how to include the token in the Authorization header using the curl command:

curl -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_TOKEN" http://api.example.com/your-secured-endpoint/

By including the authentication token in the headers, you can access the secured APIs and test them directly from the API documentation page.

Problem 3:

One more problem that users may encounter with django-rest-framework-docs is the lack of customization options for the generated API documentation. The default appearance and layout of the documentation page may not match the desired design or branding requirements.

To customize the API documentation page, you can override the default template provided by django-rest-framework-docs with your own template. First, create a new HTML template that reflects your desired design. Then, in your Django project’s settings.py file, specify the path to your custom template:

DRFDOCS_TEMPLATE = 'path/to/your/custom_template.html'

Ensure that the custom template includes the necessary placeholders for rendering the API documentation content. By providing your own template, you have full control over the appearance and styling of the API documentation page.

from rest_framework import serializers, viewsets
from drf_docs.decorators import api_doc

@api_doc(description='Get a list of users')
class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    # Serializer fields and configurations here

class UserViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    # ViewSet code here

# URLs configuration
from django.urls import include, path
from rest_framework import routers

router = routers.DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'users', UserViewSet)

urlpatterns = [
    path('api/', include(router.urls)),
    path('api/docs/', include('drf_docs.urls')),
]