I started making my project without realizing that every time I populate my DB table it adds to the existing data. I thought it would delete the old data and add the new data!
Is there any way to do what I've described above easily? If not how would you suggest I do something like this?
You should probably be using migrations:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/topics/migrations/
You should read the Models tutorial, toward the end it talks about migrations:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/intro/tutorial01/
If you are using Django 1.6 or previous, you should use south to manage your migrations:
http://south.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
Migrations helps managing versions of the Model, every time you change your model, you create a migration and apply it. Creating the migration can be automatic, south and django >= 1.7 both can find changes in your models and create the migration files. The migration files are python files capable of making the changes to the DB. Then you apply the migration and the change is done in the DB. To create the migrations, and to apply them, you must manually run a command.
The reason for having such files is version management, you can get back to a previous migration and have your DB as before. Read the documentation to learn the simple commands to do it, you surely will get it in a couple hours.
Related
In my Django app, I want to add a couple of fields to my existing models and possibly create a new class. I just want to test the new feature and approve if it works.
I can revert the code using git easily. But if I make a makemigrations+migrate then my MySQL database will change and reversing the changes looks like manual deletion of tables and reverting to an old state using a command like django-admin migrate [app_label] [migration_name] (In some cases it looks really cumbersome, example).
I'm wondering if there is any safe practice to try manipulating the database and revert it back to it's initial state safely.
Probable solution #1:
You can utilize the test database that gets created when using django.test.TestCase:
Tests that require a database (namely, model tests) will not use your
“real” (production) database. Separate, blank databases are created
for the tests.
Create some unit tests for your project and make your migrations (without migrating to your production DB, just keep the migrations). Then:
If the database does not exist, it will first be created. Any
migrations will also be applied in order to keep it up to date.
Usually, the database gets destroyed at the end of your tests, but you can keep it between runs:
You can prevent the test databases from being destroyed by using them
test --keepdb option. This will preserve the test database between
runs.
With this trick you can test every migration you make in a fake DB and when you do finalize your model and you have all the migrations history complete, you can migrate on your production DB.
Probable solution #2:
You can make a copy of your database as #albar suggests and have it as a back up while you are working on your new migrations.
Break stuff as much as you want and when you are set and done, replace the "battered" DB with your back up and apply your migration history to it.
So I have this django installation in which there are a bunch of migration scripts. They look like so:
00001_initial.py
00002_blah_blah.py
00003_bleh_bleh.py
Now I know these are "database building" scripts which will take stuff defined in models.py and run them against the db to "create" tables and stuff.
I want to create a new table(so I created its definition in models.py). For this, I have copied another model class and edited its name and fields and it is all fine. Lets call this new model class 'boom'.
My question is now how do I "create" this boom table using the migration script and the boom model?
I am worried that I might accidentally disrupt anything that is already in DB. How do I run the migration to create only boom table? How do I create a migration script specifically for it?
I know that it has something to do with manage.py and running migrate or runmigration (or is it sqlmigrate?...im confused). While creating the boom table, I dont want the database to go boom if you know what I mean :)
First, create a backup of your database. Copy it to your development machine. Try things out on that. That way it doesn't matter if it does go "boom" for some reason.
The first thing to do is
python manage.py showmigrations
This shows all the existing migrations, and it should show that they have been applied with an [X].
Then,
python manage.py makemigrations
Makes a new migration file for your new model (name 00004_...).
Then do
python manage.py migrate
to apply it. To undo it, go back to the state of migrations 00003, with
python manage.py migrate <yourappname> 00003
There are two steps to migrations in Django.
./manage.py makemigrations
will create the migration files that you see - these describe the changes that should be made to the database.
You also need to run
./manage.py migrate
this will apply the migrations and actually run the alter table commands in SQL to change the actual database structure.
Generally adding fields or tables won't affect anything else in the database. Be more careful when altering or deleting existing fields as that can affect your data.
The reason for two steps is so that you can make changes on a dev machine and once happy commit the migration files and release to your production environment. Then you run the migrate command on your production machine to bring the production database to the same state as your dev machine (no need for makemigrations on production assuming that your databases started the same).
My question is now how do I "create" this boom table using the
migration script and the boom model?
./manage.py makemigrations
I am worried that I might accidentally disrupt anything that is
already in DB.
The whole point of migrations, is that it doesn't
I know that it has something to do with manage.py and running migrate
or runmigration
For more information please refer to : https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/migrations/
And rest assured that your database will not go boom! :-)
I solved it simply, changing the name of the new model to the original name, and then I checked if there is the table in the database, if not, I just create a new table with the old name with just a field like id.
And then clear migrations and create new migrations, migrate and verify table was fixed in DB and has all missing fields.
If it still doesn't work, then change the model name back to a new one.
but when django asks you if you are renaming the model you should say NO to get the old one removed properly and create a new one.
This type of error usually occurs when you delete some table in dB manually, and then the migration history changes in the tables are lost.
But it is not necessary to erase the entire database and start from scratch.
I'm curious how other django developers manage multiple code branches (in git for instance) with migrations.
My problem is as follows:
- we have multiple feature branches in git, some of them with django migrations (some of them altering fields, or removing them altogether)
- when I switch branches (with git checkout some_other_branch) the database does not reflect always the new code, so I run into "random" errors, where a db table column does not exist anymore, etc...
Right now, I simply drop the db and recreate it, but it means I have to recreate a bunch of dummy data to restart work. I can use fixtures, but it requires keeping track of what data goes where, it's a bit of a hassle.
Is there a good/clean way of dealing with this use-case? I'm thinking a post-checkout git hook script could run the necessary migrations, but I don't even know if migration rollbacks are at all possible.
Migrations rollback are possible and usually handled automatically by django.
Considering the following model:
class MyModel(models.Model):
pass
If you run python manage.py makemigrations myapp, it will generate the initial migration script.
You can then run python manage.py migrate myapp 0001 to apply this initial migration.
If after that you add a field to your model:
class MyModel(models.Model):
my_field = models.CharField()
Then regenerate a new migration, and apply it, you can still go back to the initial state. Just run
python manage.py migrate myapp 0001 and the ORM will go backward, removing the new field.
It's more tricky when you deal with data migrations, because you have to write the forward and backward code.
Considering an empty migration created via python manage.py makemigrations myapp --empty,
you'll end up with something like:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals
from django.db import models, migrations
def forward(apps, schema_editor):
# load some data
MyModel = apps.get_model('myapp', 'MyModel')
while condition:
instance = MyModel()
instance.save()
def backward(apps, schema_editor):
# delete previously loaded data
MyModel = apps.get_model('myapp', 'MyModel')
while condition:
instance = MyModel.objects.get(myargs)
instance.delete()
class Migration(migrations.Migration):
dependencies = [
('myapp', '0003_auto_20150918_1153'),
]
operations = [
migrations.RunPython(forward, backward),
]
For pure data-loading migrations, you usually don't need the backward migration.
But when you alter the schema and update existing rows
(like converting all values in a column to slug), you'll generally have to write the backward step.
In our team, we try to avoid working on the same models at the same time to avoid collision.
If it is not possible, and two migration with the same number (e.g 0002) are created,
you can still rename one of them to change the order in which they will be applied (also remember to update
the dependencies attribute on the migration class to your new order).
If you end up working on the same model fields at the same time in different features,
you'll still be in trouble, but it may mean these features are related and should be handled
together in a single branch.
For the git-hooks part, it's probably possible to write something, Assuming your are on branch mybranch
and want to check out another feature branch myfeature:
Just before switching, you dump the list of currently applied migrations into
a temporary file mybranch_database_state.txt
Then, you apply myfeature branch migrations, if any
Then, when checking back mybranch, you reapply your previous database state
by looking to the dump file.
However, it seems a bit hackish to me, and it would probably be really difficult to handle properly all scenarios:
rebasing, merging, cherry-picking, etc.
Handling the migrations conflicts when they occurs seems easier to me.
I don't have a good solution to this, but I feel the pain.
A post-checkout hook will be too late. If you are on branch A and you check out branch B, and B has fewer migrations than A, the rollback information is only in A and needs to be run before checkout.
I hit this problem when jumping between several commits trying to locate the origin of a bug. Our database (even in development trim) is huge, so dropping and recreating isn't practical.
I'm imagining a wrapper for git-checkout that:
Notes the newest migration for each of your INSTALLED_APPS
Looks in the requested branch and notes the newest migrations there
For each app where the migrations in #1 are farther ahead than in #2, migrate back to the highest migration in #2
Check out the new branch
For each app where migrations in #2 were ahead of #1, migrate forward
A simple matter of programming!
For simple changes I rely on migration rollback, as discussed by Agate.
However, if I know a feature branch is going to involve highly invasive database changes, or if it will involve a lot of data migration, I like to create a clone of the local (or remote dev) database as soon as I start the new branch. This may not always be convenient, but especially for local development using sqlite it is just a matter op copying a file (which is not under source control).
The first commit on the new branch then updates my Django settings (local/dev) to use the cloned database. This way, when I switch branches, the correct database is selected automatically. No need to worry about rolling back schema changes, missing data, etc. No complicated stuff.
After the feature branch has been fully merged, the cloned database can be removed.
So far I have found two Github projects (django-south-compass and django_nomad) that try to solve the issue of migrating between dev branches and there is a couple of answers on Stack Overflow.
Citing an article on Medium, most of the solutions boil down to one of the following concepts:
Dropping all the tables and reapply migrations in the target branch from scratch. When the tables are created from scratch, all the data will be lost and needs to be recreated as well. This can be handled with fixtures and data migrations but managing them, in turn, will become a nightmare, not to mention that it will take some time (...)
Have a separate database for each branch and change the settings file with the target branch’s settings every time the branch is switched using tools like sed. This can be done with a post_checkout hook. Maintaining one large database for each branch would be very storage-intensive. Also, checking out individual commit IDs might potentially produce the same errors.
Finding the differences in migrations between the source and target branch, and apply the differences. We can do so with post_checkout script but there is a small issue. This post explains the issue in detail. To summarize the issue, post_checkout is run after all the files in the target branch are checked out, which includes migration files. If the target branch doesn’t contain all the migrations in the source branch when we run python manage.py migrate app1 Django won’t be able to find the missing migrations which are needed to apply reverse migrations. We have to temporarily checkout migration files in the source branch, run python manage.py migrate and checkout migration files in the target branch. django-south-compass does something very similar but is available only for up to python 2.6.
Using a management command (which uses python git module), find all the migration operations differences between the source branch and the merge-base of the source branch and target branch and notify the user of these changes. If these changes don’t interfere with the reason for branch change, the user can go ahead and change the branch. Else, using another management command, un-apply all migration till merge base, switch branch, and apply the migrations in the target branch. There will be a small data loss and if the two branches haven’t diverged a lot, is manageable. django_nomad does some of this work.
Keep a track of applied and unapplied migrations in files and use this data to populate the tables when switching branches.
I am trying to understand the difference between syncdb and migrate on Django 1.7, I have read some stack post about the difference. I get that it depends on the version, that the next version of Django will implement "migration" and that for now, South is an external app, etc.
But what is the difference beyond the scene, I mean technically speaking? What does migrate do differently?
I agree with Maxime: Check out Andrew Goodwin's talk - Designing Django's Migrations. It's a great place to start.
We've also put together a series on Django migrations:
Part 1: Django Migrations - A Primer
Part 2: Digging Deeper into Migrations
Part 3: Data Migrations
Video: Django 1.7 Migrations - primer
Take a look at the first article to see the differences between syncdb and migrate, while the second article details everything that happens behind the scenes.
From Django 1.7, the framework implements a built-in migration system. As you said, there is already South for that but it was an external module. When you were using Django in the past and you modified a model already created in database, you had to make alter the table "by hand" if you didn't use South. syncdb was only creating the table the first table and could not update it when the model was changed.
The 1.7 release notes says:
Django now has built-in support for schema migrations. It allows models to be updated, changed, and deleted by creating migration files that represent the model changes and which can be run on any development, staging or production database.
This means that when you are adding, modifying or deleting a field in a model, you can create a Python file which will applies these changes to your database. This is handy since every developer can now update their local version or the production in one simple command: manage.py migrate.
Thanks to this system, you have less errors since you do not need to report models modifications in the database by yourself, it is easier to keep an history and work with a VCS (you can go forward and backwards with migrations, or undo/redo migrations if you prefer). Indeed, these Python files created are stored in the folder <app>/migrations and there is one file per modification.
It has been integrated to Django because everyone needs it and it doesn't cost you anything to have it (runtime performance are not affected). If you want to know more about this subject, I recommend you this talk: Andrew Godwin: Designing Django's Migrations - PyCon 2014 (Youtube video - 26min)
I have a django app which consists of 17 models. Now I have realized that these models should be in 3 different apps(not in the original app). So now I would like to migrate these models out of the original app to these 3 different apps. How do I do that?
There exists foreign key, generic foreign key and ManyToMany relationships among the models. I also have data in the database(MySql), so I would like the data to be preserved during migration.
I have installed south for migrations, but don't know how to use it for solving this issue. I have gone through this similar question but could not find an answer that would solve my problem. Would be thankful for any help !
In my opinion, you have two ways of completing this task as stated below:
Move the models and add Meta.db_table to refer the existing sql table as needed as #kroolik suggested
Perform a three steps migration
The former is easier while the later could be better as tables would be named as you expect.
First of all, you mention you already has south installed. The first step would be to create the initial migration for the existing app. Take a look to the south tutorial. Then you must apply that migration, but as you already has the tables in db it would fail unless you include --fake flag.
After that you need to create the three apps you mention, and their models. Also create and apply (this time without fake flag) the initial migration for them.
Next step is write a datamigration. You must write it manually, although you can create the skeleton with datamigration. You must write "by hand" the migration.
Now you are almost done, the only remaining thing is remove the original tables. You can just remove those models, and create an "auto" schemamigration.
Don't forget to apply the migrations with migrate command. Also as #Bibhas mention a copy of database and/or a dump of it is a pretty good idea.