Is it safe to rename Django migrations file?

Question

Since Django 1.8 the makemigrations command has a --name, -n option to specify custom name for the created migrations file.

I'd like to know whether it's safe in older versions of Django to create the migrations file with the automatically generated name and then rename the file manually. It seems to work as expected. Are there any potential risks?

score 53 · Accepted Answer · answered May 24 '15 at 20:09

53

This works, with a minor caveat: Django will no longer know that the renamed migration is applied.

So the steps to renaming a migration are:

Rename the file.
Repoint any dependencies to the new file.
If the renamed migration was already applied, apply it again using --fake.

If it's a brand new migration, 2 and 3 won't apply, and it's perfectly fine to rename them.

answered May 24 '15 at 20:09

knbk

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What does "repoint any dependencies to the new file" mean? – GreenAsJade Oct 11 '21 at 05:38
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I worked out it means "if this migration is in the middle of a chain, then the next one(s) need to be edited to have this new name in them instead of the old one" – GreenAsJade Oct 11 '21 at 05:39

score 22 · Answer 2 · answered May 10 '17 at 09:51

This is happens in Django every time migrations are squashed. A new file is generated thats contains the class variable replaces, this lists the migration files that are being replaced.

So to rename a file migration file add in the following variable in the Migration class:

replaces = [('app name', 'migration file name'), ]

And everything works like it did before the file change.

Is it safe to rename Django migrations file?

2 Answers2