What is the best approach to change primary keys in an existing Django app?

Question

I have an application which is in BETA mode. The model of this app has some classes with an explicit primary_key. As a consequence Django use the fields and doesn\'t create

Answer 1

Currently you are failing because you are adding a pk column that breaks the NOT NULL and UNIQUE requirements.

You should split the migration into several steps, separating schema migrations and data migrations:

• add the new column, indexed but not primary key, with a default value (ddl migration)
• migrate the data: fill the new column with the correct value (data migration)
• mark the new column primary key, and remove the former pk column if it has become unnecessary (ddl migration)