Now that the refactorings are complete, it isn't particularly useful any
more, nor very well named. Let's keep the API as simple as possible.
Fixed#21689.
Returning None on errors required unpythonic error checking and was
inconsistent with get_app_config.
get_model was a private API until the previous commit, but given that it
was certainly used in third party software, the change is explained in
the release notes.
Applied the same change to get_registered_model, which is a new private
API introduced during the recent refactoring.
This removes the gap between the master app registry and ad-hoc app
registries created by the migration framework, specifically in terms
of behavior of the get_model[s] methods.
This commit contains a stealth feature that I'd rather not describe.
The last component of the dotted path to the application module is
consistently referenced as the application "label". For instance it's
AppConfig.label. appname could be confused with AppConfig.name, which is
the full dotted path.
Improved Andrew's hack to create temporary app caches to handle
migrations. Now the main app cache has a "master" flag set to True
(which is a non-default keyword argument, thus unlikely to be used by
mistake). Other app cache instances have "master" set to False.
The only sanctioned way to access the app cache is by importing
django.core.apps.app_cache.
If you were instanciating an app cache and relying on the Borg pattern,
you'll have to refactor your code.
Since the original ones in django.db.models.loading were kept only for
backwards compatibility, there's no need to recreate them. However, many
internals of Django still relied on them.
They were also imported in django.db.models. They never appear in the
documentation, except a quick mention of get_models and get_app in the
1.2 release notes to document an edge case in GIS. I don't think that
makes them a public API.
This commit doesn't change the overall amount of global state but
clarifies that it's tied to the app_cache object instead of hiding it
behind half a dozen functions.