database configuration without "default" not supported

[monkut]

For version 1.4 and dev documentation on multiple databases the text seems to imply that you can choose not to define a "default" db

​https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.4/topics/db/multi-db/#defining-your-databases

... Django uses the database with the alias of default when no other database has been selected. If you don’t have a default database, you need to be careful to always specify the database that you want to use.

However, when you actually remove, or do not include a "default" and attempt to syncdb with Postgresql, you get the following error that explicitly tells you, that you *must* define a "default" database:

>python manage.py syncdb
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 16, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 459, in execute_manager
    utility.execute()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 382, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 261, in fetch_command
    klass = load_command_class(app_name, subcommand)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 69, in load_command_class
    module = import_module('%s.management.commands.%s' % (app_name, name))
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\utils\importlib.py", line 35, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\commands\syncdb.py", line 8, in <module>
    from django.core.management.sql import custom_sql_for_model, emit_post_sync_signal
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\sql.py", line 6, in <module>
    from django.db import models
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\django\db\__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
    raise ImproperlyConfigured("You must define a '%s' database" % DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: You must define a 'default' database

[Claude Paroz]

I think that not depending on a specific database alias might be a desirable goal for the future. However, this will need some more cleanup regarding django.db.connection (see for example #13528).

Meanwhile, updating the documentation seems the right thing to do at short term.