Django south migration attribute order

[Ben Wyss]

When using Django South to automatically generation a 0001_initial.py file (the file used for migrations), the db table attributers order is changed into a random order.

please see the notes here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/openquake/+bug/954017

[Ben Wyss (bmwyss)]

Based on the insight into some of the upcoming developments of the FE tool, I recommend that we do not impose column order in the backend, but rather in the Middleware; namely GeoServer. In this way, if we have a purely UI requirement to change the column order (even slightly) for a table, we do not need to make any changes to the DB.
To control a tables column name order in Geoserver one needs to create a sql view, see: http://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/user/data/sqlview.html

For example to make a sql view in GeoServer for the fault view table one could use:

SELECT fault_name, length_min, length_max, length_pre, strike, episodi_is, episodi_ac, u_sm_d_min, u_sm_d_max, u_sm_d_pre, u_sm_d_com, low_d_min, low_d_max, low_d_pref, low_d_com, dip_min, dip_max, dip_pref, dip_com, dip_dir, down_thro, slip_typ, slip_r_min, slip_r_max, slip_r_pre, slip_com, aseis_slip, aseis_com, dis_min, dis_max, dis_pref, re_int_min, re_int_max, re_int_pre, mov_min, mov_max, mov_pref, all_com, compiler, contrib, created, geom
    FROM gem.fault_view

[Ben Wyss (bmwyss)]

Currently we are using Django-South version 0.7.0.
It seems that South 0.7.4 might correct the column order issue, but to test one must first update Django to <1.3, then upgrade south.

http://south.aeracode.org/ticket/1059

https://bitbucket.org/andrewgodwin/south/changeset/32cb89577c4c

[Ben Wyss (bmwyss)]

This is not relevant anymore