For my application the email field of a User should be required. That's not the case for the default User model. So I thought it would make sense to create a custom user model as described in the docs:
If you’re starting a new project, it’s highly recommended to set up a custom user model, even if the default User model is sufficient for you. This model behaves identically to the default user model, but you’ll be able to customize it in the future if the need arises:
from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser
class User(AbstractUser):
email = models.EmailField(_('email address'), blank=False)
However, I am not sure if that's the correct way to achieve this.
The reason is that here the Django docs say:
Abstract base classes are useful when you want to put some common information into a number of other models. You write your base class and put abstract=True in the Meta class. This model will then not be used to create any database table. Instead, when it is used as a base class for other models, its fields will be added to those of the child class. It is an error to have fields in the abstract base class with the same name as those in the child (and Django will raise an exception).
What should I do now?
I have to answer my question because now I know the solution:
The way I described in the start post should work. The docs are just wrong: https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/29192