Django\u2019s database layer generates SQL schemas from Python code \u2014 but with a legacy database, you already have the SQL schemas. In such a case, you\u2019ll need to create models for your existing database tables. For this purpose, Django comes with a tool that can generate model code by reading your database table layouts. This tool is called inspectdb, and you can call it by executing the command manage.py inspectdb.<\/p>\n
Using <\/strong>inspectdb<\/strong> – The inspectdb utility introspects the database pointed to by your settings file, determines a Django model representation for each of your tables, and prints the Python model code to standard output. Here\u2019s a walk-through of a typical legacy database integration process from scratch. The only assumptions are that Django is installed and that you have a legacy database.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n python mysite\/manage.py inspectdb > mysite\/myapp\/models.py<\/p>\n Cleaning Up Generated Models<\/strong> – As you might expect, the database introspection isn\u2019t perfect, and you\u2019ll need to do some light cleanup of the resulting model code. Here are a few pointers for dealing with the generated models:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n id = models.IntegerField(primary_key=True)<\/p>\n Not only are these lines redundant, but also they can cause problems if your application will be adding new<\/em> records to these tables. The inspectdb command cannot detect whether a field is autoincremented, so it\u2019s up to you to change this to AutoField, if necessary.<\/p>\n If a field in your database has no good Django equivalent, you can safely leave it off. The Django model layer is not required to include every field in your table(s).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For example, if a table has an INT column called for, the generated model will have a field like this:<\/p>\n for_field = models.IntegerField(db_column=’for’)<\/p>\n inspectdb will insert the Python comment ‘Field renamed because it was a Python reserved word.’ next to the field.<\/p>\n\n
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