I am using Django as my web framework with Django REST API. Time and time again, when I try to migrate the table on production, I get a litany of errors. I believe my migrations on development are out of sync with production, and as a result, chaos. Thus each time I attempt major migrations on production I end up needing to use the nuclear option - delete all migrations, and if that fails, nuke the database. (Are migrations even supposed to be committed?)

This time however, I have too much data to lose. I would like to preserve the data. I would like to construct a new database with the new schema, and then manually transfer the old database to the new one. I am not exactly sure how to go about this. Does anyone have any suggestions? Additionally, how can I prevent this from occurring in the future?

CodePudding user response：

From what you're saying, it sounds like you have migration files that are out of wack and you're constantly running into issues relating to database migrations. I would recommend you just remove all of your migration files and start with a new initial migration after you make all the necessary model changes and restructuring of the schema.

When it comes time to make the migration on your production server, it might make the most sense to --fake-initial and manually making the database changes outside of Django so it matches your schema.

I might get a lot of backlash about this and obviously use your best judgement, but from my experience it was much easier to go about this problem this way and not wasting time making custom migration files that try to fix all of your problems.

Addressing your other questions

Time and time again, when I try to migrate the table on production, I get a litany of errors.

I highly recommend you take the time to get acquainted with how to make migrations by reading the official Django docs, you will save yourself a LOT of headache.

... each time I attempt major migrations on production I end up needing to use the nuclear option - delete all migrations

You shouldn't be deleting your migration files every time there's an issue.

Are migrations even supposed to be committed?

You should definitely be committing your migrations. If you're working on a team, they would be using the migration files you created to make the necessary changes on their local DB as well as any dev/prod server you may have.