Django is a free and open-source web framework written in Python that follows the model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern. It is designed to make web development easier and more efficient by providing a set of high-level abstractions and tools that allow developers to focus on writing their application's business logic.
Django was created in 2003 by Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison while they were working on a news website called Lawrence.com. They wanted a framework that would help them quickly develop web applications with a clean and pragmatic design. Since then, Django has become one of the most popular web frameworks in the world, used by companies such as Instagram, Pinterest, and Mozilla.
Features Django comes with a wide range of built-in features that make web development faster and more efficient. Some of these features include:
Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) Django provides an ORM that allows developers to interact with databases using Python objects instead of SQL statements. This makes it easier to write database code and reduces the risk of SQL injection attacks.
Admin interface Django's admin interface allows developers to quickly create a web-based interface for managing their application's data. The admin interface can be customized to fit the needs of each application, and it comes with built-in support for things like filtering, sorting, and searching.
URL routing Django's URL routing system makes it easy to map URLs to Python functions or classes. This allows developers to create clean, readable URLs for their applications.
Templating system Django's templating system allows developers to create HTML templates that can be reused across multiple pages. Templates can be extended and overridden to provide a consistent look and feel for an application.
Form handling Django provides built-in support for handling forms, including form validation and CSRF protection.
Middleware Django's middleware allows developers to add functionality to the request/response process. Middleware can be used for things like authentication, caching, and logging.
Security Django provides built-in security features such as password hashing, CSRF protection, and clickjacking protection.
Getting started To start using Django, you first need to install it on your computer. You can do this by running the following command in your terminal:
pip install Django |
Once Django is installed, you can create a new project using the following command:
django-admin startproject <project_name> |
This will create a new directory with the project structure, including settings, URLs, and the base application directory.
Next, you can create a new application within your project using the following command:
python manage.py startapp <app_name> |
This will create a new directory with the application structure, including models, views, and templates.
Models In Django, models represent the data in your application. You define your models using Python classes that inherit from Django's models.Model class. Each attribute of the class represents a field in the database.
For example, here is a simple model for a blog post:
from django.db import modelsclass Post(models.Model): title = models.CharField(max_length=200) content = models.TextField() pub_date = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True) |
In this model, we define a Post class with three attributes: title, content, and pub_date. The title attribute is a CharField with a maximum length of 200 characters. The content attribute is a TextField that can store large amounts of text. The pub_date attribute is a DateTimeField that automatically sets the current date and time when a new.