Split models.py into several files

Question

I'm trying to split the models.py of my app into several files:

My first guess was do this:

myproject/     settings.py     manage.py     urls.py     __init__.py     app1/         views.py         __init__.py         models/             __init__.py             model1.py             model2.py     app2/         views.py         __init__.py         models/             __init__.py             model3.py             model4.py 

This doesn't work, then i found this, but in this solution i still have a problem, when i run python manage.py sqlall app1 I got something like:

BEGIN; CREATE TABLE "product_product" (     "id" serial NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,     "store_id" integer NOT NULL ) ; -- The following references should be added but depend on non-existent tables: -- ALTER TABLE "product_product" ADD CONSTRAINT "store_id_refs_id_3e117eef" FOREIGN KEY     ("store_id") REFERENCES "store_store" ("id") DEFERRABLE INITIALLY DEFERRED; CREATE INDEX "product_product_store_id" ON "product_product" ("store_id"); COMMIT; 

I'm not pretty sure about this, but i'm worried aboout the part The following references should be added but depend on non-existent tables:

This is my model1.py file:

from django.db import models  class Store(models.Model):     class Meta:         app_label = "store" 

This is my model3.py file:

from django.db import models  from store.models import Store  class Product(models.Model):     store = models.ForeignKey(Store)     class Meta:         app_label = "product" 

And apparently works but i got the comment in alter table and if I try this, same thing happens:

class Product(models.Model):     store = models.ForeignKey('store.Store')     class Meta:         app_label = "product" 

So, should I run the alter for references manually? this may bring me problems with south?

Answer 1

For anyone on Django 1.9, it is now supported by the framework without defining the class meta data.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/db/models/#organizing-models-in-a-package

NOTE: For Django 2, it's still the same

The manage.py startapp command creates an application structure that includes a models.py file. If you have many models, organizing them in separate files may be useful.

To do so, create a models package. Remove models.py and create a myapp/models/ directory with an __init__.py file and the files to store your models. You must import the models in the __init__.py file.

So, in your case, for a structure like

app1/     views.py     __init__.py     models/         __init__.py         model1.py         model2.py app2/     views.py     __init__.py     models/         __init__.py         model3.py         model4.py 

You only need to do

#myproject/app1/models/__init__.py: from .model1 import Model1 from .model2 import Model2  #myproject/app2/models/__init__.py: from .model3 import Model3 from .model4 import Model4 

A note against importing all the classes:

Explicitly importing each model rather than using from .models import * has the advantages of not cluttering the namespace, making code more readable, and keeping code analysis tools useful.