Django Database

Handling databases in Django

When starting a project sqlite is preinstalled. This database is in development sufficient. When going to production it is recommended to use postgresDB.

In django you can create new databases within the models.py of your app. Each app will have its own databases. The code for a models entry could look like this:

from django.db import models
from django.utils impor timezone
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

class Post(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    content = models.TextField()
    date_posted = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)
    author = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)

Here a database wiht the name Post is created. This table has different columns which are defined by the Fields parameter. You need to run python3 manage.py makemigrations to get migration of the model. In the migrations directory now a file is created which holds all the informations. To see what sql is doing behind the scene you can type:

python3 manage.py sqlmigrate blog 0001

blog is the app name and 0001 is the created filename in the migrations folder. The output is what you have to write in sql.

Now you need to make the database available with:

python3 manage.py migrate

If you want to use this database on a site you need to import it in the views.py file:

from django.shortcuts import render
from .models import Post


def home(request):
    context = {
        'posts': Post.objects.all()
    }
    return render(request, 'blog/home.html', context)

def about(request):
    return render(request, 'blog/about.html', {'title': 'About'})
    

If you want to make your models / databases available in the backend, you need to register the models in the admin.py file of your app:

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Post

admin.site.register(Post)

In the backend you can easy handle the models/databases. Create new entries and change metadata information.