We’re in the process of updating a web app for a client that was built last year about this time using Django and Photologue. Needless to say, there have been a lot of changes to both over the past year!

We were somewhat dismayed to find no easy upgrade path for photologue, and there are a number of model changes that mean you can’t just run svn up and be done with it. Using the JSON output from ./manage.py dumpdata, we created a little Python script that handles the database migrations for three of the photologue models (Gallery, Photo, and PhotoSize). Save this in a script called migrate-photologue.py:

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#!/usr/bin/python
 
import sys
import simplejson
 
if len(sys.argv) != 2:
    print 'Usage: %s <json input>' % sys.argv[0]
    sys.exit(1)
 
REMOVE_COLUMNS = {
    'photologue.photo': (
        'photographer',
        'info',
    ),
}
 
RENAME_COLUMNS = {
    'photologue.photo': {
        'pub_date': 'date_added',
        'slug': 'title_slug',
    },
    'photologue.gallery': {
        'pub_date': 'date_added',
        'slug': 'title_slug',
    },
}
 
ADD_COLUMNS = {
    'photologue.photo': {
        'view_count': 0,
    },
    'photologue.photosize': {
        'upscale': False,
        'increment_count': 0,
    },
}
 
data = simplejson.load(open(sys.argv[1]))
 
for obj in data:
    fields = obj['fields']
    model = obj['model']
    for col in REMOVE_COLUMNS.get(model, []):
        if col in fields:
            fields.pop(col)
    for old_name, new_name in RENAME_COLUMNS.get(model, {}).iteritems():
        if old_name in fields:
            fields[new_name] = fields[old_name]
            fields.pop(old_name)
    for col, default_value in ADD_COLUMNS.get(model, {}).iteritems():
        fields[col] = default_value
 
print simplejson.dumps(data, indent=4)

The script is fairly simple, but back up your database first, just in case. If you need support for additional models, just add the changes you need to the dicts at the top of the file.

During the upgrade, it might help to have two copies of the database running on the local machine, so you can switch back and forth between them at will. A typical migration might look like this:

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./manage.py dumpdata photologue > photologue.json
./migrate-photologue.py photologue.json > photologue2.json
./manage.py sqlclear photologue | ./manage.py dbshell
svn up photologue # or however you do it
./manage.py syncdb
./manage.py loaddata photologue2.json
./manage.py sqlsequencereset photologue | ./manage.py dbshell # just in case

Of course, things will get more complicated if you have other models with foreign keys to any of the photologue models. You’ll have to drop the constraints temporarily and then add them again after you finish the migration, or take the plunge and write the SQL to do the migration while keeping your database relationships intact.

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