In Django, a project is a collection of settings, configurations, and applications that make up a web application. It is the top-level container that defines the structure of your application and is responsible for managing the components that make up the application. A Django project typically includes one or more applications, which are reusable modules that provide specific functionality for the web application. In this chapter, we will be making our very first “Hello world” project in Django.
To create a Django project, you need to set up your development environment first. Here are the steps to follow:
python3 -m venv myenv
This will create a virtual environment called "myenv" in your current directory.
On Windows:
myenv\\Scripts\\activate.bat
On macOS and Linux:
source myenv/bin/activate
pip install django
This will install the latest stable version of Django in your virtual environment.
import django
print(django.get_version())
Save the file as "test.py" and run it by typing the following command in your terminal or command prompt:
python test.py
If Django is installed correctly, you should see the version number printed in your terminal or command prompt.
Congratulations! You've now set up your development environment for creating Django projects.
To create a new Django project, follow these steps:
Open a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the directory where you want to create the project.
Run the following command to create a new project:
Replace **projectname**
with the name of your project.
django-admin startproject helloworld
This will create a new directory called ‘**helloworld**
' that contains the basic files and folders for a Django project.
Once you have created your Django project, the next step is to create a Django app. A Django app is a self-contained module that performs a specific functionality in your project. For example, if you are building a blog website, you might create a Django app for handling the blog functionality, another app for handling user authentication, and so on.
To create a Django app, follow these steps:
Navigate to the root directory of your Django project in the terminal/command prompt.
Run the following command to create a new app:
python manage.py startapp hello
Replace **<app_name>**
with the name of your app. For example, if you are creating an app for your blog functionality, you could name it "blog", here it is “hello”.
After running the above command, Django will create a new directory with the name of your app. This directory will contain all the necessary files for your app, including models, views, and templates
A view is a Python function that takes a web request and returns a web response. In Django, views are stored in the **views.py**
file within each app. To create a view, open the **views.py**
file within the **hello**
app and add the following code:
from django.http import HttpResponse
def hello_world(request):
return HttpResponse('Hello, World!')
URL patterns map URLs to views. To create a URL pattern for the **hello_world**
view, open the **urls.py**
file within the **hello**
app and add the following code:
from django.urls import path
from . import views
urlpatterns = [
path('hello/', views.hello_world, name='hello_world'),
]
This will create a URL pattern that maps the URL **/hello/**
to the **hello_world**
view.
To test the application, start the development server by running the following command:
python manage.py runserver
This will start the development server on port 8000. To view the "Hello, World!" application, open a web browser and go to **http://localhost:8000/hello/**
. You should see the message "Hello, World!" displayed on the page.
And that's it! You've created a "Hello, World!" application in Django. This is a very simple example, but it demonstrates the basic concepts of creating a Django project, creating an app, defining views and URL patterns, and running the development server. From here, you can start building more complex applications using the Django framework.
In this text, we learned about the process of creating a Django project, starting from setting up the development environment to creating a view and URL pattern. We learned that a project in Django is a collection of settings, configurations, and applications that make up a web application. We also learned that an application in Django is a self-contained module that performs a specific functionality in the project. Additionally, we learned about the importance of creating a virtual environment and the steps involved in creating a Django project and app. Finally, we learned how to create a view and a URL pattern and map URLs to views. By following these steps, we can create a basic "Hello world" project in Django.
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