Can I change the USERNAME_FIELD in Django 1.5 without creating a custom user?

Question

I am trying to use the email field in the default Django user model as the username. I am using Django 1.5 and I saw that the default user has a USERNAME_FIELD

Answer 1

You have to write a new Custom User Class by extending the AbstractBaseUser and not AbstractUser

Declare your email as the USERNAME_FIELD there

Optionally you can also declare a custom user manager that extends from BaseUserManager to handle the username required constraint. You can remove username from that manager's create_user function