How can I activate the unaccent extension on an already existing model
A migration file needs to be manually made and applied.
First, create an empty migration:
./manage.py makemigrations myapp --emptyThen open the file and add UnaccentExtension to operations:
from django.contrib.postgres.operations import UnaccentExtensionclass Migration(migrations.Migration): dependencies = [ (<snip>) ] operations = [ UnaccentExtension() ]Now apply the migration using ./manage.py migrate.
If you'd get following error during that last step:
django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: permission denied to create extension "unaccent"HINT: Must be superuser to create this extension.... then temporarily allow superuser rights to your user by performing postgres# ALTER ROLE <user_name> SUPERUSER; and its NOSUPERUSER counterpart. pgAdminIII can do this, too.
Now enjoy the unaccent functionality using Django:
>>> Person.objects.filter(first_name__unaccent=u"Helène")[<Person: Michels Hélène>]