migrate --run-syncdb doesn't work when specifying a database

[Gertjan Oude Lohuis]

As ​the docs state, "the --run-syncdb option allows creating tables for apps without migrations.". However, this doesn't seem to work. To demonstrate this, ​I've created a very simple Django project from the first steps of the tutorial. When running 'python manage.py migrate --run-syncdb polls' I get the error "CommandError: App 'polls' does not have migrations.", while I expected an sqlite-database with the structure.

It makes no difference if I created a 'migrations' directory with just an 'init.py'.

Is this a bug, or is this intended behaviour and are the docs off (or do I not understand them)?

I've managed to get the command working with some minor adjustments to ​https://github.com/django/django/blob/1.9/django/core/management/commands/migrate.py, but I'm too unfamiliar with the code to be sure I didn't break anything else. I'll try to whip up a PR though.

[Tim Graham]

You're missing the 'polls' app in INSTALLED_APPS.

[Gertjan Oude Lohuis]

Hi Tim,

Thanks, you're right of course, but that doesn't solve my problem. But I think I've figured it out. If I run ./manage.py migrate --run-syncdb it indeed works as intended: the polls app is also synced to the database. However, in our software stack we use a different database for each app, with a router configured in DATABASE_ROUTERS that routes reads, writes, relations and migrations.
In that case, we need to migrate each database to it's own database. Before 1.9, we needed to specify the app that was being synced or migrated. I just found out that with 1.9 that's no longer necessary. In my example, these two commands gave the expected result: ./manage.py migrate --run-syncdb and ./manage.py migrate --run-syncdb --database polls.

I've updated ​my example at github to demonstrate our router and settings.

I think this behaviour deserves a mention in the docs. Also, the error I encountered is not very helpful. It should at least mention that --run-syncdb it not possible when specifying an app. Why is that? When I change ​this line to if app_label not in executor.loader.migrated_apps and not run_syncdb (and move the assignment to run_syncdb higher) everything works as I'd expect. I couldn't find any tests that documented this behaviour :(.

[Tim Graham]

This could very well be a bug as I didn't think or test the multiple database support when adding run_syncdb. Feel free to submit a patch and we can probably backport it to 1.9.

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In cd403068:

Fixed #25884 -- Fixed migrate --run-syncdb when specifying an app label.