Django south migration - Adding FULLTEXT indexes

Question

I need to add a FULLTEXT index to one of my Django model\'s fields and understand that there is no built in functionality to do this and that such an index must be added manuall

Answer 1

You can write anything as a migration. That's the point!

Once you have South up and running, type in python manage.py schemamigration myapp --empty my_custom_migration to create a blank migration that you can customize.

Open up the XXXX_my_custom_migration.py file in myapp/migrations/ and type in your custom SQL migration there in the forwards method. For example you could use db.execute

The migration might look something like this:

class Migration(SchemaMigration):

    def forwards(self, orm):
        db.execute("CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX foo ON bar (foobar)")
        print "Just created a fulltext index..."
        print "And calculated {answer}".format(answer=40+2)


    def backwards(self, orm):
        raise RuntimeError("Cannot reverse this migration.") 
        # or what have you


$ python manage.py migrate myapp XXXX # or just python manage.py migrate.
"Just created fulltext index...."
"And calculated 42"