Avoid makemigrations to re-create date field

Question

Using Django 1.7, whenever I perform a makemigrations, I get a change on one of my models:

(venv) >> python manage.py makemigrations myapp

Migrations for 'myapp':
  0005_auto_20141206_1129.py:
    - Alter field date on observation

This is due to my Observation class using datetime.today():

class Observation(model.Models):
    date = models.DateField(default=datetime.datetime.today())

Is there an easy way to avoid creating migration files for this, but at the same time keeping the default of today() whenever an Observation is created?

Kevin Christopher Henry Kevin Christopher Henry · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-06T11:21:24

The problem is that each time this code is run the default changes to the current value of today(). That's because you're actually calling the function instead of passing it as a callable. Simply leave off the trailing () and you should be fine.

(Note that you should use datetime.date.today, since you want a date value, not a datetime value.)

Avoid makemigrations to re-create date field

1 Answers