Question

short story

I run ./manage.py schemamigration junk_app --initial on a completely fresh django project right after freshly installing South ( http://south.aeracode.org/ ), and I get the following error:

Unknown command: 'schemamigration'
Type 'manage.py help' for usage.

EDIT: I have version .7 (south/init.py has version = “.07”)

long story

Below is almost a literal copy/paste of what just happened:

$ sudo apt-get install python-django-south
$ django-admin.py startproject junk_proj
$ cd junk_proj
$ ./managy.py startapp junk_app
$ vim settings.py #add 'south' to INSTALLED_APPS

.

$ cat settings.py
# Django settings for junk_proj project.

DEBUG = True
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

ADMINS = (
    # ('Your Name', '[e-mail]'),
)

MANAGERS = ADMINS

import os
CWD = os.getcwd()
DATABASE_ENGINE = 'sqlite3'           # 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
DATABASE_NAME = CWD+'/db'             # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
DATABASE_USER = ''             # Not used with sqlite3.
DATABASE_PASSWORD = ''         # Not used with sqlite3.
DATABASE_HOST = ''             # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
DATABASE_PORT = ''             # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.

# Local time zone for this installation. Choices can be found here:
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_zones_by_name
# although not all choices may be available on all operating systems.
# If running in a Windows environment this must be set to the same as your
# system time zone.
TIME_ZONE = 'America/Chicago'

# Language code for this installation. All choices can be found here:
# http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/language-identifiers.html
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1

# If you set this to False, Django will make some optimizations so as not
# to load the internationalization machinery.
USE_I18N = True

# Absolute path to the directory that holds media.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/"
MEDIA_ROOT = ''

# URL that handles the media served from MEDIA_ROOT. Make sure to use a
# trailing slash if there is a path component (optional in other cases).
# Examples: "http://media.lawrence.com", "http://example.com/media/"
MEDIA_URL = ''

# URL prefix for admin media -- CSS, JavaScript and images. Make sure to use a
# trailing slash.
# Examples: "http://foo.com/media/", "/media/".
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/media/'

# Make this unique, and don't share it with anybody.
SECRET_KEY = 'vgtm!i0*(qn$8m9&0u_)#(5yh(kt8%+4dlwfum%xtt-$1ge+ld'

# List of callables that know how to import templates from various sources.
TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.load_template_source',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.load_template_source',
#     'django.template.loaders.eggs.load_template_source',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'junk_proj.urls'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/django_templates" or "C:/www/django/templates".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'south',
    'junk_app',
)

.

$ ./managy.py syncdb
Creating table auth_permission
Creating table auth_group
Creating table auth_user
Creating table auth_message
Creating table django_content_type
Creating table django_session
Creating table django_site
Creating table south_migrationhistory

You just installed Django's auth system, which means you don't have any superusers defined.
Would you like to create one now? (yes/no): yes
Username (leave blank to use 'foo'): admin
E-mail address: [e-mail]
Password:
Password (again):
Superuser created successfully.
Installing index for auth.Permission model
Installing index for auth.Message model

synced:
 > django.contrib.auth
 > django.contrib.contenttypes
 > django.contrib.sessions
 > django.contrib.sites
 > south
 > junk_app

Not synced (use migrations):
 -
(use ./manage.py migrate to migrate these)
$
$./manage.py schemamigration junk_app --initial
Unknown command 'schemamigration'
Type 'manage.py help' for usage
$

Answer 1

You are probably using some old South version, 0.6.x or even 0.5.x. If you type that “./manage.py help” you should see startmigration (iirc) on the list of available commands.