SachinDas246

Posted on Jun 24, 2022

Django COPY PASTE !

#django #webdev #python #beginners

If you are Beginner or an intermediate Django developer u know that starting a new project in Django project is easy, nothing more than just couple of commands right? But at least for me I have to Duck it or check the previous project every time to get it right. For instance I always get trouble if it is createapp or createproject or startproject to start a Django project.

So here are some of the commands and snippets which you might find help full!. Note that these are not the steps to create a project nor are in particular order. Also you might not need all these steps in your project , so use only what you need.

1. Installing Virtual Env wrapper:

# For Linux and OS X :
pip install virtualenvwrapper

# For windows:
pip install virtualenvwrapper-win

2. Creating, Enabling and Disabling Virtual Environment using wrapper :

# To create virtual env
mkvirtualenv [virtual env name]
# To enable virtual env
workon [virtual env name]
# To disable virtual env
deactivate

3. Installing Django

pip install Django

4. Creating a Django Project:

Some may prefer giving project name as "config" at first so they get a project with settings.py and other core files inside "config app and afterwards renaming the project root directory to the project name.

django-admin startproject [project name]

5. Running in development server

# running on 127.0.0.1:8000
python manage.py runserver
# running on a different port (eg. 127.0.0.1:7777)
python manage.py runserver 7777
# running on a different ip (eg. 192.168.1.5:7777)
python manage.py runserver 192.168.1.5:7777

6. Access Database shell

python manage.py dbshell

7. Access Django shell

python manage.py shell

8. Make Database Migration and Migrate

# Make migration
python manage.py makemigrations
# Migrate
python manage.py migrate

9. Adding new App to the project:

Run the following command to create an app
Add your app name to the INSTALLED_APPS variable in settings.py

# create new app
python manage.py startapp app_name
# add app to settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django...',
     .
     .
    'app_name'
]

10. A simple view that return a web page

define a function inside your app_name/view.py

from django.shortcuts import render

def home(request):    
    return render(request,'home.html') # make sure you have home.html configured properly

11. Configure urls for each app

You can have separate urls.py file in each app to efficiently route your project.For which: create a file named urls.py inside your corresponding app and add it to the main urls.py (that resides along with your settings.py file )

inside newly created urls.py

from os import name
from django.urls import path
from . import views
urlpatterns = [
    path('__page_location__', views.function_name,name="name for the page"),
# here it would be path('home', views.home,name="home"),"
]

Add this url.py to the main urls.py (that resides along with settings.py)
main "urls.py"

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path
from django.urls.conf import include

urlpatterns = [
  #  path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
  path('app_name', include('app_name.urls')),
]
# if you done properly you should see home page at http://127.0.0.1:8000/app_name/home

12. Adding Templates

Create a Dir called templates(or anything you wish) inside project root Dir
Update your TEMPLATES variable inside settings.py

# add your templates dir to DIRS in TEMPLATES variable.
'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'templates')],

13. Configuring Static Dir

Create a dir called "static" (or anything you wish) in the project root dir .
Update setting.py by adding static dir to it.

# If you need a different name or location update it accordingly. you could add multiple dirs using ',' commas 
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    BASE_DIR / "static",
]

14. Loading static files inside html

whenever you need to static files in your template , you need to call {% load static %} before hand ( note you need to call in every html(template) file that require static content.)

{% load static %}

After that , you could load static file like ( here logo.png is the file located in the static dir. )

<img src="{% static 'logo.png' %}" alt="logo">

15. Similarly you could load your css file.

create style/style.css inside static dir
add this to your corresponding html template

{% load static %}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static 'style/style.css' %}">

16. Configuring Media files

As you might know Django don't like to serving its media file , so this config also allows only media file access in development
Create a dir called media in the project root dir
Add config to settings.py and urls.py (that resides along with your settings.py file )

# in settings.py add the following
MEDIA_ROOT =os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'media/')
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

# in urls.py 
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static
if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL,document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

17. A Simple Template Approach

A simple approach for the Django app is to create a base html template that includes the basic tags and extend it to the other pages.
- here is a sample basic template

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>PROJECT_NAME</title>
    {% load static %}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static 'style/style.css' %}">
</head>
<body>
    {% block content %}

    {% endblock %}    
</body>
</html>

And extent in another template for example home.html

{% extends 'base.html' %}
{% block content %}

<h1> this is home page </h1>

{% endblock %}

18. Including templates

If wish, you could include other templates to your main template. For instance you could create a template named nav_bar.html and include in every other templates ( here I have included it in home.html ).

nav_bar.html

<p> this is a nav bar. </p>

home.html

{% extends 'base.html' %}
{% block content %}
{% include 'navbar.html'%}

<h1> this is home page </h1>

{% endblock %}

19. Simple regex verification

Warning: these are very basic regex. Do your own research before using regex.

import re

email_regex = re.compile(r'([A-Za-z0-9]+[.-_])*[A-Za-z0-9&]+@[A-Za-z0-9-]+(\.[A-Z|a-z]{2,})+')
zip_regex = re.compile(r'^[A-Za-z0-9\.\-\s]{3,10}$')
password_regex = re.compile(r'^(?=.*?[A-Z])(?=.*?[a-z])(?=.*?[0-9])(?=.*?[#?!@$ %^&*-])[a-zA-Z0-9!@#$&*]{8,15}$')

# To verify
email = "someone@somewhere.com"
if not re.fullmatch(email_regex,email):
        return "Invalid email"

20. CSRF for Api

By default Django checks for csrf verification, so make sure you add {% csrf_token %} in your forms
And if you are manually send request using js you need to include the csrf token in your request.

# for forms:
<form ... >
{% csrf_token %}             
</form>

# For manual request 

# this function return csrf token from cookie 
function getCookie(name) {
        let cookieValue = null;
        if (document.cookie && document.cookie !== '') {
            const cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
            for (let i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
                const cookie = cookies[i].trim();
                // Does this cookie string begin with the name we want?
                if (cookie.substring(0, name.length + 1) === (name + '=')) {
                    cookieValue = decodeURIComponent(cookie.substring(name.length + 1));
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
        return cookieValue;
    }


# inside your request options add csrf token in header
var requestOptions = {
            method: 'POST',
            headers: {'X-CSRFToken': getCookie('csrftoken')},
            body: formdata,
            mode: 'same-origin',
            redirect: 'follow'
};

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