What is django?

mobanto April 15, 2023

Django is a high-level Python web framework that enables the rapid development of secure and maintainable websites and web applications. It follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, but with some variations, such as using the Model-View-Template (MVT) pattern instead.

Django provides a robust set of tools and libraries for handling common web development tasks, such as handling forms, authentication, routing, database migrations, and more. It also emphasizes the concept of “batteries included”, which means that it includes many useful features out of the box, so developers don’t have to spend time building everything from scratch.

Django is a popular choice for web development due to its simplicity, scalability, and versatility. It is used by many companies and organizations, including Instagram, Spotify, Mozilla, and The Washington Post, among others.

So, Lets Dive In 🏊…!

Creating a Virtual Environment in Windows

Open the command prompt by pressing the Windows key + R and then typing cmd in the Run dialog box.
Navigate to the directory where you want to create your virtual environment using the cd command. For example, to navigate to the desktop, you can type cd Desktop.
Once you’re in the desired directory, enter the command python -m venv myenv to create a virtual environment named myenv. You can choose any name for your virtual environment.
Activate the virtual environment by entering the command source myenv\Scripts\activate. You should see the name of your virtual environment appear in parentheses in the command prompt.

Creating a Virtual Environment in Mac/Linux

Open the terminal by pressing Command + Spacebar and then typing terminal in the Spotlight Search bar.
Navigate to the directory where you want to create your virtual environment using the cd command. For example, to navigate to the desktop, you can type cd Desktop.
Once you’re in the desired directory, enter the command python3 -m venv myenv to create a virtual environment named myenv. You can choose any name for your virtual environment.
Activate the virtual environment by entering the command source myenv/bin/activate. You should see the name of your virtual environment appear in parentheses in the terminal.

That’s it! You have successfully created a virtual environment in both Windows and Mac/Linux. Now you can install any packages or dependencies required for your project within the virtual environment without affecting the system-wide Python installation.

Installing Django

Open a command prompt or terminal window.
Check if Python is already installed on your system by running the command python --version. If Python is not installed, download and install Python from the official website.
Once Python is installed, run the command pip install django to install Django.
Wait for the installation to complete. This might take a few minutes depending on your internet connection speed.
Once the installation is complete, verify the installation by running the command django-admin --version. This should output the version number of Django installed on your system.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Django on your local machine. You can now start building your web applications using the Django web framework.

How to Create a New Django Project.

Open your terminal or command prompt.
Navigate to the directory where you have created virtual environment and make sure your virtual environment is activated.
Run the following command to create a new Django project:
```
django-admin startproject project_name
```
Replace project_name with the name you want to give your project.
Once the project is created, navigate to the project directory using the following command:
```
cd project_name
```
Again, replace project_name with the name of your project.
To test that your project has been created successfully, run the following command:
```
python manage.py runserver
```
This will start the development server. You should be able to see the Django welcome page by navigating to http://localhost:8000/ in your web browser.

That’s it! You’ve successfully created a new Django project.

How to create Django App

Open a terminal or command prompt.
Navigate to the root directory of your Django project (the folder where manage.py is present).
Run the following command:
```
python manage.py startapp <app_name>
```
Replace <app_name> with the name of your app. For example, if you want to create an app called blog, you would run:
```
python manage.py startapp blog
```
Django will create a new directory with the name you provided for the app. The directory will contain several files and subdirectories.

Open the settings.py file in your Django project folder and add the name of your app to the INSTALLED_APPS list. For example:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'blog', # Add your app name here
]

Save the settings.py file.
You’re now ready to start building your Django app!
Now run python manage.py migrate command to apply any pending database migrations to the database schema.

Now let’s understand Django App file structure

project_name/
├── app_name/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── tests.py
│   └── views.py
├── project_name/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
└── manage.py

Let’s break it down:

project_name/ – This is the root directory of the Django project.
app_name/ – This is a directory that contains a single Django app. You can have multiple apps within a single Django project.
__init__.py – This is an empty file that tells Python that this directory should be considered a Python package.
admin.py – This file is used to register models with the Django admin site.
apps.py – This file is used to configure the Django app.
models.py – This file contains the database models for the Django app.
tests.py – This file contains the test cases for the Django app.
views.py – This file contains the view functions for the Django app.
settings.py – This file contains the settings for the Django – project, such as database configuration and installed apps.
urls.py – This file contains the URL routing configuration for the Django project.
wsgi.py – This file is used for deployment to WSGI-compatible servers.
manage.py – This file is used to run management commands for the Django project.

Overall, this directory structure provides a clear separation of concerns between the project-level and app-level components of a Django application. Understanding this structure is key to building scalable and maintainable Django projects.

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