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Manual Django

The document discusses how to add and remove fields from a Django model in a production environment. It describes taking advantage of Django not caring about extra database columns by first adding the column, then updating the model. It provides steps to add a field in development and production, and discusses removing fields and many-to-many fields.

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CarlosRobertoGilTobar
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as ODT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
91 views

Manual Django

The document discusses how to add and remove fields from a Django model in a production environment. It describes taking advantage of Django not caring about extra database columns by first adding the column, then updating the model. It provides steps to add a field in development and production, and discusses removing fields and many-to-many fields.

Uploaded by

CarlosRobertoGilTobar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as ODT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Adding Fields

When adding a field to a table/model in a production setting, the trick is to take advantage of the fact that
Django doesnt care if a table contains columns that arent defined in the model. The strategy is to add the
column in the database, and then update the Django model to include the new field.
However, theres a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here, because in order to know how the new database
column should be expressed in SQL, you need to look at the output of Djangos manage.py sqlall command,
which requires that the field exist in the model. (Note that youre not required to create your column with
exactly the same SQL that Django would, but its a good idea to do so, just to be sure everythings in sync.)
The solution to the chicken-and-egg problem is to use a development environment instead of making the
changes on a production server. (You are using a testing/development environment, right?) Here are the
detailed steps to take.
First, take these steps in the development environment (i.e., not on the production server):
1. Add the field to your model.
2. Run manage.py sqlall [yourapp] to see the new CREATE TABLE statement for the model. Note the column

3.

definition for the new field.


Start your databases interactive shell (e.g., psql or mysql, or you can use manage.py dbshell). Execute

4.

anALTER TABLE statement that adds your new column.


Launch the Python interactive shell with manage.py shell and verify that the new field was added properly by

importing the model and selecting from the table (e.g., MyModel.objects.all()[:5]). If you updated the
database correctly, the statement should work without errors.
Then on the production server perform these steps:
1. Start your databases interactive shell.
2. Execute the ALTER TABLE statement you used in step 3 of the development environment steps.

3.

Add the field to your model. If youre using source-code revision control and you checked in your change in

development environment step 1, now is the time to update the code (e.g., svn update, with Subversion) on
the production server.
4. Restart the Web server for the code changes to take effect.
For example, lets walk through what wed do if we added a num_pages field to the Book model from Chapter
5. First, wed alter the model in our development environment to look like this:

class Book(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
authors = models.ManyToManyField(Author)
publisher = models.ForeignKey(Publisher)
publication_date = models.DateField()
num_pages = models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True)
def __unicode__(self):
return self.title
(Note: Read the section Making Fields Optional in Chapter 6, plus the sidebar Adding NOT NULL Columns
below for important details on why we included blank=True and null=True.)
Then wed run the command manage.py sqlall books to see the CREATE TABLE statement. Depending on
your database backend, it would look something like this:

CREATE TABLE "books_book" (


"id" serial NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
"title" varchar(100) NOT NULL,

"publisher_id" integer NOT NULL REFERENCES "books_publisher"


("id"),
"publication_date" date NOT NULL,
"num_pages" integer NULL
);
The new column is represented like this:

"num_pages" integer NULL


Next, wed start the databases interactive shell for our development database by typing psql (for
PostgreSQL), and wed execute the following statements:

ALTER TABLE books_book ADD COLUMN num_pages integer;


Adding NOT NULL Columns
Theres a subtlety here that deserves mention. When we added the num_pages field to our model, we
included the blank=True and null=True options. We did this because a database column will contain NULL
values when you first create it.
However, its also possible to add columns that cannot contain NULL values. To do this, you have to create
the column as NULL, then populate the columns values using some default(s), and then alter the column to
set the NOT NULL modifier. For example:

BEGIN;
ALTER TABLE books_book ADD COLUMN num_pages integer;
UPDATE books_book SET num_pages=0;
ALTER TABLE books_book ALTER COLUMN num_pages SET NOT NULL;
COMMIT;
If you go down this path, remember that you should leave off blank=True and null=True in your model
(obviously).
After the ALTER TABLE statement, wed verify that the change worked properly by starting the Python shell
and running this code:

>>> from mysite.books.models import Book


>>> Book.objects.all()[:5]
If that code didnt cause errors, wed switch to our production server and execute
the ALTER TABLE statement on the production database. Then, wed update the model in the production
environment and restart the Web server.

Removing Fields
Removing a field from a model is a lot easier than adding one. To remove a field, just follow these steps:
1. Remove the field from your model and restart the Web server.
2. Remove the column from your database, using a command like this:

ALTER TABLE books_book DROP COLUMN num_pages;


Make sure to do it in this order. If you remove the column from your database first, Django will immediately
begin raising errors.

Removing Many-to-Many Fields

1.

Because many-to-many fields are different than normal fields, the removal process is different:
Remove the ManyToManyField from your model and restart the Web server.

2. Remove the many-to-many table from your database, using a command like this:

DROP TABLE books_book_authors;

As in the previous section, make sure to do it in this order.

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