Django: Select data from already existed tables - mysql

I am new to the world of Django. I am developing an application which will manipulate data on some new tables and some others that are already existed. Until now I knew how to create a new model and when I issue the ..syncdb command a corresponding, to the model, table will be created.
The other tables are used from another (not mine) application. How do you believe is the best way to proceed?
Thank you!

The documentation has a whole page on dealing with legacy databases, including how to autogenerate your models from the existing database.

Related

How to rename a table and some columns in production

I am using Entity Framework to handle the database in a server application. The server application is deployed to multiple nodes sitting behind a load balancer. I have now discovered the need to rename some of the tables and some of the table columns in the database. The problem is that I will need to do this without any down-time.
If I was writing my own database layer I could simply check the structure of the database and then run different code depending on if the database structure was upgraded or not and then I could potentially have 0% downtime.
Is it possible to do something like this in entity framework 4 or how do I actually make database changes in production with entity framework? I have searched the web for any solution but to no success. I have also considered having 2 entity framework instances in my app but the amount of code I have to write to switch between them would be far too much and error prone.
So to summarize the question:
Is there any way to rename tables and columns in a database in a production environment using Entity Framework 4 and without any downtime whatsoever?
EDIT
A new idea I got would be to create a view in place of the old table with the old naming scheme referencing the new table. I dont know if this will work. For it to work Entity Framework needs to accept this view like it would be a normal table. Could this be a good idea? Anyone tried anything like this with EF4 ?
Okay! Here is what thought I got -
Create new table in DB than renaming and build EntityFramework solution on that.
You need to deploy this by taking one server off from loadbalancer, update it,point entity framework code to new table structure and then again attach to loadbalancer.
Make the same procedure for all the servers in loadbalancer one by one. Once all are up with updated patch then sync old table and new table and then just delete old table. I am suggesting synching these tables so that you have all the data without data loss might happen in above process.

Django using external mysql DB - best way to tackle

I have scanned all of the similar titles and questions regarding my issue and also the django website itself and I cannot find the best solution. I apologize if this has been answered.
My django is configured to use a MySQL database with information already inside of it.
I have a database with tables created inside of them in which I will only need to read from to build graphs.
Should I build a model for each one of these types of tables?
Basically a new table named simulation_log201403 is created each time we run a simulation. Inside of this we have a timestamp, node, ppsavg etc. This simulation ID is linked to a computer_id.
Do I have to hand create each model based off my old database?
Thanks for the help
I'm not sure I understand your question. If you're asking how to use Django with a database not created by your Django models, read the chapter entitled Integrating Django with a legacy database.

Creating a CakePHP REST api from an existing project

I have a webapp which I am planning on converting into a REST api and have decided to use CakePHP for this - the current form is written in ColdFusion.
The database is a couple million records in size with 20 tables or so and a few associative tables that handle the many-to-many situations.
I'm looking for the best method to start the CakePHP solution mainly in regards to the database. Should I import my existing db and just use cake to access its current form? Should I bake a fresh database structure (in order to stay within the cake standards) then figure out how to get my data into the new db, and maintain relationships etc (how?)?
Edit:
There are many users on the existing app, but when the new CakePHP api is setup and ready to go, the old service will be closed to use the new one.
The current app is not designed in an MVC way, are you referring to Models as being synonymous with Tables? There are many existing tables with foreign key relationships but they are not named using the CakePHP standards - so not sure if this will break CakePHP or make its features not as usable.
Time is an issue, but I'd rather take the time now and get it done the correct way, instead of having to re-visit shortly.
I largely depends on your situation:
Are there people using the old application? - This will mean you
can't really create another database for your new app if you want to
access new information.
Is there really a need to change the relationships of models? - I don't think you should change unless you
really need to.
Cost - How much time are you willing to spend on the migration?
Note:
You can modify almost everything on your model to cope up with the previous database/table structure.

Providing create table feature over GUI

I am developing a web application in which a user can Create a table in data base. I am thinking on taking the attribute names and table description from user and put them into SQL query and execute it. But the drawback is that if this application is installed somewhere else all the db connection parameters have to be changed secondly it will be hard coded. Or is this the approach in software industry?
Another approach I can think of is taking all the information about creating a new table from user and inserting them into one table and have some kind of trigger on this table which creates a new table everytime when insertion is performed into the first table.What would be the SQL Script for such thing if my approach is correct?
I am using SPRING - MVC, Hibernate, MySQL, REST web service
Please correct me if I am thinking in wrong direction. TO be honest I am not clear on how I am going to do this.
Thanks
This is risky, since a database schema with a vague and ever-expanding schema will become difficult to manage. Your problem isn't how to manage the credentials, which you would have to handle securely whether users were creating tables or not. Your problem is why it seems necessary for users to create tables.
Are you building an interface to manage arbitrary databases? Maybe phpmyadmin would give your users everything they need.
Or are you doing something not quite so general purpose and open ended? Perhaps with a sufficiently rich table design, you can give the users what they want without requiring that they build their own tables. What information do users have to put in a table that it looks like they need to build their own?
If you are more specific with your objectives, we could be more helpful.

Putting Rails over top of an existing database

I have an application written in PHP/MySQL (symfony, to be specific) that I'd (potentially) like to rewrite in Rails. I know how to create scaffolding for tables that don't exist yet, but how do I get Rails to read my existing table structure and create scaffolding based on that?
Update: it turns out I can run the following command to get Rails to generate models for me:
rails generate scaffold Bank --no-migration
But it doesn't give me forms. I would prefer something that gives me forms.
The answer is db:schema:dump.
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/migrations.html
The easiest route is to pretend that you are writing a fresh app with a similar database schema - you can then create your models and migrations with the old schema in mind, but without being restricted by it. At a later stage, you can create a database migration script to copy all the old data into the new schema.
I'm doing this right now. The benefit of this approach is that you can take advantage of all of the rapid development tools and techniques provided by Rails (including scaffolds) without being slowed by trying to retrofit to the exact same schema.
However, if you do decide that you don't like this approach, and you do need to map your new models to existing tables, there are a number of configuration options provided by active record where you can override the convention over configuration naming patterns and map model names to tables names, set oddly named ID fields etc. For example:
class Mammals < ActiveRecord::Base
set_table_name "tbl_Squirrels"
set_primary_key :squirrel_id
end
The above will help Rails attempt to read your existing table, but success will depend upon how well the existing table structures matches Rails conventions. You may have to supply more configuration information to get it to work, and even then it might not work.
Finally, it may be worth considering the use of DataMapper which I believe is more suited to existing brownfield databases than ActiveRecord, because it allows you to map everything, but of course you will need to learn that API if you don't already know it.