Django — Migrations

What are Migrations?

Migrations are Django's way of propagating changes you make to your models into your database schema.

Create Migrations

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py makemigrations blog

Apply Migrations

python manage.py migrate

Migration Files

blog/migrations/
├── 0001_initial.py
├── 0002_post_published.py
└── __init__.py

Migration Operations

from django.db import migrations, models

class Migration(migrations.Migration):
    dependencies = [
        ('blog', '0001_initial'),
    ]

    operations = [
        migrations.AddField(
            model_name='post',
            name='published',
            field=models.BooleanField(default=False),
        ),
    ]

Common Commands

python manage.py showmigrations          # Show migration status
python manage.py sqlmigrate blog 0001    # Show SQL for migration
python manage.py migrate blog 0002       # Migrate to specific version
python manage.py migrate blog zero       # Reverse all migrations

Rollback

# Rollback last migration
python manage.py migrate blog 0001

Best Practices

1. Always create migrations after model changes
2. Review migration files before applying
3. Test migrations on development first
4. Use data migrations for data changes

Mini Practice

1. Create a model and make migrations
2. Apply migrations
3. Rollback a migration
4. View migration SQL

Up Next

Continue with Admin — Django's admin interface.