On Mar 8, 6:00 pm, Daniel Roseman <dan...@roseman.org.uk> wrote: > On Mar 8, 3:01 pm, Derek <gamesb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I am working with a legacy database and would appreciate some advice. > > > I have an existing "user" table, with some fields that overlap with the > > design of Django's "user" table, and some fields that are "extra" to it. I > > understand that I can use Django's "user" table and extend it to include > > these extra fields. > > > However, the problem lies with the user's "id" field. In the legacy > > database, this id appears in numerous tables (to identify the person who > > last edited the record) but is a short character string, NOT an > > auto-increment numeric value. I am wondering what is the best/possible > > approach in order to use all the features of Django admin without any code > > changes. I assume I will need to convert all the existing users into the > > Django user table, but then do I: > > > a. leave the id field in the other tables "as is"? In which case, is it > > possible to somehow adapt Django's numeric id field to become alpha-numeric? > > > b. carry-out a mass update and convert all existing user id's in all tables > > to the Django numeric format? > > > I think (b) might be better in the long run (although I am partial to the > > idea of "human readable" id string when browsing the raw data), but I would > > welcome other opinions (or options). > > > Thanks > > Derek > > A Django ForeignKey field doesn't have to point at the related table's > id column - you can use the 'to_field' attribute of the ForeignKey to > point it at a different field. So I would suggest keeping your non- > numeric key as (eg) 'legacy_key', and in your related models use: > user = ForeignKey(UserProfile, to_field='legacy_key'). > > Would that work? > -- > DR.
Thank you. That is an excellent suggestion. I will try it out. Derek -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-us...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
