[patch] Allow models to live outside models.py

[Luke Plant]

In current magic-removal, you get exceptions if you want to place a model outside of the models.py module (e.g. in a subpackage) (to be specific, the check that the model is in INSTALLED_APPS throws an exception). The attached patch fixes this by allowing 'module' to be specified as a 'Meta' option.

Previously using 'app_label' would fix it. By specifying 'module' instead, you won't need 'app_label' (in the usual case at least). Meta.module should be the fully qualified module name of the models file e.g. 'myproj.myapp.models', and you also need to import your model classes into models.py or models/__init__.py.

It looks like this:

some_random_file.py:

class Foo(models.Model):
    # fields etc
    class Meta:
        module = 'myapp.myproj.models'

myapp/myproj/models.py or myapp/myproj/models/__init__.py:

from some_random_file import Foo

I think that's relatively clean. It only requires one line extra per model than what you would usually do i.e. the 'module' option in 'Meta'.

[Luke Plant]

Patch to implement this ticket

[Antti Kaihola]

(you probably mean myproj.myapp.models and myproj/myapp/models above, not myapp/myproj...)

[Luke Plant]

Actually, I've changed my mind about this patch. For one thing, I have just discovered doing 'foo??' in ipython to get the complete source of 'foo', which is amazingly cool, and this patch breaks it. Bad Patch!

The other is this: the patch is just a way to get round the test on INSTALLED_APPS that was recently added. The question is - why was this test added? Is it the right test? The test is in essence saying: all models *have* to live in models.py, (and that models.py has to be in INSTALLED_APPS). The problem is I don't want that behaviour -- I want to be able to put the models in different files, and I think Django needs this flexibility.

[Luke Plant]

I've closed this in favour of reverting the change that made it necessary [2406] - see #1179 for details.

[Antti Kaihola]

To split models to multiple files, you can do the following (works at least with revision 2819):

apps/polls/models/__init__.py:

from poll import Poll
from choice import Choice

apps/polls/models/poll.py:

from django.db import models

class Poll(models.Model):
    question = models.CharField(maxlength=200)
    pub_date = models.DateTimeField('date published')

    class Meta:
        app_label = 'polls'

apps/polls/models/choice.py:

from django.db import models
from poll import Poll

lass Choice(models.Model):
    poll = models.ForeignKey(Poll)
    choice = models.CharField(maxlength=200)
    votes = models.IntegerField()

    class Meta:
        app_label = 'polls'

[(none)]

Milestone Version 1.0 deleted