Control column order in migrations

[Rinshan]

When I add a new field in Django, the migration always puts the column at the end of the table.

Sometimes I need the column in a specific place (for example, to match a legacy database or schema).

Right now, the only way is to write custom SQL.

Can Django give an option to control column order in migrations, or keep the model field order?

[David Sanders]

Hi there,

No Django can't do this.

If you're looking for support pls see the Django forum or Discord where a community member may be able to help you out: ​https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/faq/help/ 👍

If you want to submit an idea for a feature in Django please check out the Django new features repo: ​https://github.com/django/new-features

[Simon Charette]

There exists another discussion about that (either on Trac or the django-dev mailing list) but I can't find it. IIRC the discussed points were

1. Allowing re-ordering of fields would require the migration framework to ensure its ModelState.fields ordering is kept correctly. Today it's dict[str, Field] where order is not meaningful.
2. It would require some shims on backends that don't support the ​MySQL specific ADD COLUMN AFTER syntax such ​as Postgres which would likely involve re-creating the table anyway. Not sure about Oracle but we rebuild the table on SQLite on column addition in most cases so it should be an issue in this case.

If your application has code that depends on column ordering it likely means that you have custom SQL anyway as the ORM abstracts that away entirely for you so using custom SQL through RunSQL or SeparateDatabaseAndState operation should not be a concern.