Thanks for the quick response! I just tried datetimefields with `datetime.datetime.now` and `timezone.now` as defaults (and another one with null=True, just to see). They just evaluated the callables and set those as static default values, e.g., the code generated was this:
BEGIN; ALTER TABLE "customers" ADD COLUMN "created_datetime_now" timestamp with time zone DEFAULT '2014-10-29 13:31:34.519110+00:00' NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE "customers" ADD COLUMN "created_timezone_now" timestamp with time zone DEFAULT '2014-10-29 13:31:34.607064+00:00' NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE "customers" ADD COLUMN "created_null_true" timestamp with time zone NULL; COMMIT; This isn't ideal, but doesn't look too far off from what the existing migration does anyways. For example, I tested adding a not null boolean column with a default value of false to a table that had pre-existing rows, and the SQL for it looks like this: BEGIN; ALTER TABLE "temp_table" ADD COLUMN "temp" boolean NOT NULL DEFAULT false; ALTER TABLE "temp_table" ALTER COLUMN "temp" DROP DEFAULT; COMMIT; If I then do a select from that table, I see that all existing columns have taken on the default value of false for the "temp" column. db=# SELECT "temp" FROM "temp_table" LIMIT 5; temp ------ f f f f f (5 rows) Even if I change the add column line to be nullable (`ALTER TABLE "temp_table" ADD COLUMN "temp" boolean NULL DEFAULT false`), it still introduces the default value to existing rows. Given how this works in practice, I'd either label that a bug in the current implementation or suggest that it's one more reason that putting defaults in the db isn't that big of a deal. On the other hand I haven't played around with callables for default values much more than with timestamps, are there some that might actually raise exceptions? I'll keep playing around with this and come back later when I have more input on using it in practice and probably find some lurking bug somewhere. Worst case, other people who really want this functionality could use this as a 3rd-party dependency. Regardless, I think the docs should be clearer about defaults not getting set in the db. On Thursday, October 30, 2014 12:47:29 PM UTC-4, Andrew Godwin wrote: > > Hi Peter, > > The main reason this hasn't been done in the past was that Django has > never made use of database defaults, mostly for the reason described in > that thread - that Django is sufficiently expressive with its defaults (you > can pass in any callable) that we can't represent them in the database. The > only reason they're ever set at all is because we need them to add columns, > and even then I'd considered a mode where django adds all columns as NULL > and calls the default once per row rather than doing one call for the whole > set of rows. > > I'm not totally against the idea, but I'd want to see a convincing method > as to how you detect and deal with defaults that are not expressible in the > database (for example, what if someone does the very common > default=datetime.datetime.now). Obviously all calls through Django will > still work as intended, but other database users will have entirely the > wrong value in that field whenever they insert rows but no errors to tell > them about it (and if you don't have other database users than Django, why > do you need the defaults in there in the first place?) > > Andrew > > On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Peter Coles <peter....@gmail.com > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> Hey all, >> >> I'm interested in getting database migrations to support setting >> database-level default values. I've heard talk of this being a hotly >> contested issue in the past, but I haven't been able to find the actual >> conversations, so far this >> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/django-developers/database$20defaults/django-developers/fHjzttZTkzc/oXbrpBa0dHAJ> >> >> is the best thread I've found and I've already asked about it in >> django-users >> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/django-users/_N2mtxFTFjI>. >> >> Instead of just asking for this feature, I've gone ahead and created a >> new db backend that is almost exactly >> the `django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2` module, but with two key code >> blocks removed (that appear to be the logic to remove default values from >> the database). >> >> Here's the repo: https://github.com/ringly/django-postgres-dbdefaults >> >> and here it is in pypi: >> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-postgres-dbdefaults/0.0.1 >> >> I'd love to hear feedback/thoughts/concerns. >> >> -Peter >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Django developers (Contributions to Django itself)" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to django-d...@googlegroups.com >> <javascript:>. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django-developers/5bf3f984-30fb-4adf-a992-616cbdedd864%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django-developers/5bf3f984-30fb-4adf-a992-616cbdedd864%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers (Contributions to Django itself)" group. 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