Django Cheatsheet

• Check Django Version
• Create Django Project
• Run Development Server
• Create an App
• Projects vs Apps
• Sample View
• Map View to URL
• Point Root URLConf at App's URL module

python -m django --version

Note: Don't use - in project name

django-admin startproject your_project_name

It creates following directory structure

└── your_project_name
    ├── manage.py
    └── your_project_name
        ├── __init__.py
        ├── settings.py
        ├── urls.py
        └── wsgi.py

These files are:

• Outer your_project_name Root director of your project. Just a container.
• manage.py Django utility to interact with project.
• Inner your_project_name Actual django app.
• settings.py Settings for this django project.
• urls.py URLs declarations for this django project.
• wsgi.py Entry point for WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) compatible servers to serve your project.

python manage.py runserver [ip-address:port]

If no address is given, it will run server on http://localhost:8000/.

python manage.py startapp your_app_name

It creates following directory structure

├── your_app_name
    ├── admin.py
    ├── apps.py
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── migrations
    │   └── __init__.py
    ├── models.py
    ├── tests.py
    └── views.py

Note: Apps can live anywhere on your python path.

An app is a Web application that does something – e.g., a Weblog system, a database of public records or a simple poll app. A project is a collection of configuration and apps for a particular website. A project can contain multiple apps. An app can be in multiple projects.

Here is simplest possible view in django

from django.http import HttpResponse

def index(request):
    return HttpResponse("Hello django!!")

Create a urls.py file in your app's directory and add following lines

from django.urls import path

from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('url_to_view', 'your_view', name='name_for_your_url')
]

name attribute is used to refer your view from somewhere else in your code. Even if you change the actual url, name will still refer to same view. For example

In Code

password_url = reverse('name_for_your_url')

In template

<p>Please go <a href="{% url 'name_for_url' %}">here</a></p>

Add following lines in your project/urls.py

from django.urls import include

urlpatterns = [
    path('sub_url_for_your_app', include('your_app.urls'))
]

include() allows referencing other URLConfs