Split models.py into several files
The relevant link for Django 3 is:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/topics/db/models/#organizing-models-in-a-package
Links to previous versions of documentation are broken. The example there is very succinct:
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.
For example, if you had organic.py and synthetic.py in the models directory:
from .organic import Person
from .synthetic import Robot
I'd do the following:
myproject/
...
app1/
views.py
__init__.py
models.py
submodels/
__init__.py
model1.py
model2.py
app2/
views.py
__init__.py
models.py
submodels/
__init__.py
model3.py
model4.py
Then
#myproject/app1/models.py:
from submodels/model1.py import *
from submodels/model2.py import *
#myproject/app2/models.py:
from submodels/model3.py import *
from submodels/model4.py import *
But, if you don't have a good reason, put model1 and model2 directly in app1/models.py and model3 and model4 in app2/models.py
---second part---
This is app1/submodels/model1.py file:
from django.db import models
class Store(models.Model):
class Meta:
app_label = "store"
Thus correct your model3.py file:
from django.db import models
from app1.models import Store
class Product(models.Model):
store = models.ForeignKey(Store)
class Meta:
app_label = "product"
Edited, in case this comes up again for someone: Check out django-schedule for an example of a project that does just this. https://github.com/thauber/django-schedule/tree/master/schedule/models https://github.com/thauber/django-schedule/
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.
I've actually come across a tutorial for exactly what you're asking about, you can view it here:
http://paltman.com/breaking-apart-models-in-django/
One key point that's probably relevant - you may want to use the db_table field on the Meta class to point the relocated classes back at their own table.
I can confirm this approach is working in Django 1.3