Let’s learn by example.
\nThroughout this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the creation of a basic\npoll application.
\nIt’ll consist of two parts:
\nA public site that lets people view polls and vote in them.
An admin site that lets you add, change and delete polls.
We’ll assume you have Django installed already. You can\ntell Django is installed and which version by running the following command:
\n$ python -c "import django; print(django.get_version())"\nIf Django is installed, you should see the version of your installation. If it\nisn’t, you’ll get an error telling “No module named django”.
\nThis tutorial is written for Django 1.8 and Python 3.2 or later. If the\nDjango version doesn’t match, you can refer to the tutorial for your version\nof Django by using the version switcher at the bottom right corner of this\npage, or update Django to the newest version. If you are still using Python\n2.7, you will need to adjust the code samples slightly, as described in\ncomments.
\nSee How to install Django for advice on how to remove\nolder versions of Django and install a newer one.
\n\nIf this is your first time using Django, you’ll have to take care of some\ninitial setup. Namely, you’ll need to auto-generate some code that establishes a\nDjango project – a collection of settings for an instance of Django,\nincluding database configuration, Django-specific options and\napplication-specific settings.
\nFrom the command line, cd into a directory where you’d like to store your\ncode, then run the following command:
$ django-admin startproject mysite\nThis will create a mysite directory in your current directory. If it didn’t\nwork, see Problems running django-admin.
Let’s look at what startproject created:
mysite/\n manage.py\n mysite/\n __init__.py\n settings.py\n urls.py\n wsgi.py\nThese files are:
\nThe outer mysite/ root directory is just a container for your\nproject. Its name doesn’t matter to Django; you can rename it to anything\nyou like.
manage.py: A command-line utility that lets you interact with this\nDjango project in various ways. You can read all the details about\nmanage.py in django-admin and manage.py.
The inner mysite/ directory is the actual Python package for your\nproject. Its name is the Python package name you’ll need to use to import\nanything inside it (e.g. mysite.urls).
mysite/__init__.py: An empty file that tells Python that this\ndirectory should be considered a Python package. (Read more about\npackages in the official Python docs if you’re a Python beginner.)
mysite/settings.py: Settings/configuration for this Django\nproject. Django settings will tell you all about how settings\nwork.
mysite/urls.py: The URL declarations for this Django project; a\n“table of contents” of your Django-powered site. You can read more about\nURLs in URL dispatcher.
mysite/wsgi.py: An entry-point for WSGI-compatible web servers to\nserve your project. See How to deploy with WSGI for more details.
Now, open up mysite/settings.py. It’s a normal Python module with\nmodule-level variables representing Django settings.
By default, the configuration uses SQLite. If you’re new to databases, or\nyou’re just interested in trying Django, this is the easiest choice. SQLite is\nincluded in Python, so you won’t need to install anything else to support your\ndatabase. When starting your first real project, however, you may want to use a\nmore robust database like PostgreSQL, to avoid database-switching headaches\ndown the road.
\nIf you wish to use another database, install the appropriate database\nbindings, and change the following keys in the\nDATABASES 'default' item to match your database connection\nsettings:
ENGINE – Either\n'django.db.backends.sqlite3',\n'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',\n'django.db.backends.mysql', or\n'django.db.backends.oracle'. Other backends are also available.
NAME – The name of your database. If you’re using SQLite, the\ndatabase will be a file on your computer; in that case, NAME\nshould be the full absolute path, including filename, of that file. The\ndefault value, os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'), will store the file\nin your project directory.
If you are not using SQLite as your database, additional settings such as USER, PASSWORD, HOST must be added.\nFor more details, see the reference documentation for DATABASES.
While you’re editing mysite/settings.py, set TIME_ZONE to\nyour time zone.
Also, note the INSTALLED_APPS setting at the top of the file. That\nholds the names of all Django applications that are activated in this Django\ninstance. Apps can be used in multiple projects, and you can package and\ndistribute them for use by others in their projects.
By default, INSTALLED_APPS contains the following apps, all of which\ncome with Django:
django.contrib.admin – The admin site. You’ll use it in part 2\nof this tutorial.
django.contrib.auth – An authentication system.
django.contrib.contenttypes – A framework for content types.
django.contrib.sessions – A session framework.
django.contrib.messages – A messaging framework.
django.contrib.staticfiles – A framework for managing\nstatic files.
These applications are included by default as a convenience for the common case.
\nSome of these applications make use of at least one database table, though,\nso we need to create the tables in the database before we can use them. To do\nthat, run the following command:
\n$ python manage.py migrate\nThe migrate command looks at the INSTALLED_APPS setting\nand creates any necessary database tables according to the database settings\nin your mysite/settings.py file and the database migrations shipped\nwith the app (we’ll cover those later). You’ll see a message for each\nmigration it applies. If you’re interested, run the command-line client for your\ndatabase and type \\dt (PostgreSQL), SHOW TABLES; (MySQL), .schema\n(SQLite), or SELECT TABLE_NAME FROM USER_TABLES; (Oracle) to display the\ntables Django created.
Let’s verify your Django project works. Change into the outer mysite directory, if\nyou haven’t already, and run the following commands:
$ python manage.py runserver\nYou’ll see the following output on the command line:
\nPerforming system checks...\n\n0 errors found\nAug 09, 2026 - 15:50:53\nDjango version 1.8, using settings 'mysite.settings'\nStarting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/\nQuit the server with CONTROL-C.\n
You’ve started the Django development server, a lightweight Web server written\npurely in Python. We’ve included this with Django so you can develop things\nrapidly, without having to deal with configuring a production server – such as\nApache – until you’re ready for production.
\nNow’s a good time to note: don’t use this server in anything resembling a\nproduction environment. It’s intended only for use while developing. (We’re in\nthe business of making Web frameworks, not Web servers.)
\nNow that the server’s running, visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/ with your Web\nbrowser. You’ll see a “Welcome to Django” page, in pleasant, light-blue pastel.\nIt worked!
\n\n\nNow that your environment – a “project” – is set up, you’re set to start\ndoing work.
\nEach application you write in Django consists of a Python package that follows\na certain convention. Django comes with a utility that automatically generates\nthe basic directory structure of an app, so you can focus on writing code\nrather than creating directories.
\n\nYour apps can live anywhere on your Python path. In this tutorial, we’ll\ncreate our poll app right next to your manage.py file so that it can be\nimported as its own top-level module, rather than a submodule of mysite.
To create your app, make sure you’re in the same directory as manage.py\nand type this command:
$ python manage.py startapp polls\nThat’ll create a directory polls, which is laid out like this:
polls/\n __init__.py\n admin.py\n migrations/\n __init__.py\n models.py\n tests.py\n views.py\nThis directory structure will house the poll application.
\nThe first step in writing a database Web app in Django is to define your models\n– essentially, your database layout, with additional metadata.
\n\nIn our simple poll app, we’ll create two models: Question and Choice.\nA Question has a question and a publication date. A Choice has two fields:\nthe text of the choice and a vote tally. Each Choice is associated with a\nQuestion.
These concepts are represented by simple Python classes. Edit the\npolls/models.py file so it looks like this:
polls/models.pyfrom django.db import models\n\n\nclass Question(models.Model):\n question_text = models.CharField(max_length=200)\n pub_date = models.DateTimeField('date published')\n\n\nclass Choice(models.Model):\n question = models.ForeignKey(Question)\n choice_text = models.CharField(max_length=200)\n votes = models.IntegerField(default=0)\nThe code is straightforward. Each model is represented by a class that\nsubclasses django.db.models.Model. Each model has a number of class\nvariables, each of which represents a database field in the model.
Each field is represented by an instance of a Field\nclass – e.g., CharField for character fields and\nDateTimeField for datetimes. This tells Django what\ntype of data each field holds.
The name of each Field instance (e.g. question_text or\npub_date) is the field’s name, in machine-friendly format. You’ll use this\nvalue in your Python code, and your database will use it as the column name.
You can use an optional first positional argument to a\nField to designate a human-readable name. That’s used\nin a couple of introspective parts of Django, and it doubles as documentation.\nIf this field isn’t provided, Django will use the machine-readable name. In this\nexample, we’ve only defined a human-readable name for Question.pub_date. For all\nother fields in this model, the field’s machine-readable name will suffice as\nits human-readable name.
Some Field classes have required arguments.\nCharField, for example, requires that you give it a\nmax_length. That’s used not only in the\ndatabase schema, but in validation, as we’ll soon see.
A Field can also have various optional arguments; in\nthis case, we’ve set the default value of\nvotes to 0.
Finally, note a relationship is defined, using\nForeignKey. That tells Django each Choice is related\nto a single Question. Django supports all the common database relationships:\nmany-to-one, many-to-many and one-to-one.
That small bit of model code gives Django a lot of information. With it, Django\nis able to:
\nCreate a database schema (CREATE TABLE statements) for this app.
Create a Python database-access API for accessing Question and Choice objects.
But first we need to tell our project that the polls app is installed.
Edit the mysite/settings.py file again, and change the\nINSTALLED_APPS setting to include the string 'polls'. So it’ll\nlook like this:
mysite/settings.pyINSTALLED_APPS = (\n 'django.contrib.admin',\n 'django.contrib.auth',\n 'django.contrib.contenttypes',\n 'django.contrib.sessions',\n 'django.contrib.messages',\n 'django.contrib.staticfiles',\n 'polls',\n)\nNow Django knows to include the polls app. Let’s run another command:
$ python manage.py makemigrations polls\nYou should see something similar to the following:
\nMigrations for 'polls':\n 0001_initial.py:\n - Create model Question\n - Create model Choice\n - Add field question to choice\nBy running makemigrations, you’re telling Django that you’ve made\nsome changes to your models (in this case, you’ve made new ones) and that\nyou’d like the changes to be stored as a migration.
Migrations are how Django stores changes to your models (and thus your\ndatabase schema) - they’re just files on disk. You can read the migration\nfor your new model if you like; it’s the file\npolls/migrations/0001_initial.py. Don’t worry, you’re not expected to read\nthem every time Django makes one, but they’re designed to be human-editable\nin case you want to manually tweak how Django changes things.
There’s a command that will run the migrations for you and manage your database\nschema automatically - that’s called migrate, and we’ll come to it in a\nmoment - but first, let’s see what SQL that migration would run. The\nsqlmigrate command takes migration names and returns their SQL:
$ python manage.py sqlmigrate polls 0001\nYou should see something similar to the following (we’ve reformatted it for\nreadability):
\nBEGIN;\nCREATE TABLE "polls_choice" (\n "id" serial NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,\n "choice_text" varchar(200) NOT NULL,\n "votes" integer NOT NULL\n);\nCREATE TABLE "polls_question" (\n "id" serial NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,\n "question_text" varchar(200) NOT NULL,\n "pub_date" timestamp with time zone NOT NULL\n);\nALTER TABLE "polls_choice" ADD COLUMN "question_id" integer NOT NULL;\nALTER TABLE "polls_choice" ALTER COLUMN "question_id" DROP DEFAULT;\nCREATE INDEX "polls_choice_7aa0f6ee" ON "polls_choice" ("question_id");\nALTER TABLE "polls_choice"\n ADD CONSTRAINT "polls_choice_question_id_246c99a640fbbd72_fk_polls_question_id"\n FOREIGN KEY ("question_id")\n REFERENCES "polls_question" ("id")\n DEFERRABLE INITIALLY DEFERRED;\n\nCOMMIT;\nNote the following:
\nThe exact output will vary depending on the database you are using. The\nexample above is generated for PostgreSQL.
Table names are automatically generated by combining the name of the app\n(polls) and the lowercase name of the model – question and\nchoice. (You can override this behavior.)
Primary keys (IDs) are added automatically. (You can override this, too.)
By convention, Django appends "_id" to the foreign key field name.\n(Yes, you can override this, as well.)
The foreign key relationship is made explicit by a FOREIGN KEY\nconstraint. Don’t worry about the DEFERRABLE parts; that’s just telling\nPostgreSQL to not enforce the foreign key until the end of the transaction.
It’s tailored to the database you’re using, so database-specific field types\nsuch as auto_increment (MySQL), serial (PostgreSQL), or integer\nprimary key autoincrement (SQLite) are handled for you automatically. Same\ngoes for the quoting of field names – e.g., using double quotes or\nsingle quotes.
The sqlmigrate command doesn’t actually run the migration on your\ndatabase - it just prints it to the screen so that you can see what SQL\nDjango thinks is required. It’s useful for checking what Django is going to\ndo or if you have database administrators who require SQL scripts for\nchanges.
If you’re interested, you can also run\npython manage.py check; this checks for any problems in\nyour project without making migrations or touching the database.
Now, run migrate again to create those model tables in your database:
$ python manage.py migrate\nOperations to perform:\n Synchronize unmigrated apps: staticfiles, messages\n Apply all migrations: admin, contenttypes, polls, auth, sessions\nSynchronizing apps without migrations:\n Creating tables...\n Running deferred SQL...\n Installing custom SQL...\nRunning migrations:\n Rendering model states... DONE\n Applying <migration name>... OK\nThe migrate command takes all the migrations that haven’t been\napplied (Django tracks which ones are applied using a special table in your\ndatabase called django_migrations) and runs them against your database -\nessentially, synchronizing the changes you made to your models with the schema\nin the database.
Migrations are very powerful and let you change your models over time, as you\ndevelop your project, without the need to delete your database or tables and\nmake new ones - it specializes in upgrading your database live, without\nlosing data. We’ll cover them in more depth in a later part of the tutorial,\nbut for now, remember the three-step guide to making model changes:
\nChange your models (in models.py).
Run python manage.py makemigrations to create\nmigrations for those changes
Run python manage.py migrate to apply those changes to\nthe database.
The reason that there are separate commands to make and apply migrations is\nbecause you’ll commit migrations to your version control system and ship them\nwith your app; they not only make your development easier, they’re also\nuseable by other developers and in production.
\nRead the django-admin documentation for full\ninformation on what the manage.py utility can do.
Now, let’s hop into the interactive Python shell and play around with the free\nAPI Django gives you. To invoke the Python shell, use this command:
\n$ python manage.py shell\nWe’re using this instead of simply typing “python”, because manage.py\nsets the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable, which gives Django\nthe Python import path to your mysite/settings.py file.
Once you’re in the shell, explore the database API:
\n>>> from polls.models import Question, Choice # Import the model classes we just wrote.\n\n# No questions are in the system yet.\n>>> Question.objects.all()\n[]\n\n# Create a new Question.\n# Support for time zones is enabled in the default settings file, so\n# Django expects a datetime with tzinfo for pub_date. Use timezone.now()\n# instead of datetime.datetime.now() and it will do the right thing.\n>>> from django.utils import timezone\n>>> q = Question(question_text="What's new?", pub_date=timezone.now())\n\n# Save the object into the database. You have to call save() explicitly.\n>>> q.save()\n\n# Now it has an ID. Note that this might say "1L" instead of "1", depending\n# on which database you're using. That's no biggie; it just means your\n# database backend prefers to return integers as Python long integer\n# objects.\n>>> q.id\n1\n\n# Access model field values via Python attributes.\n>>> q.question_text\n"What's new?"\n>>> q.pub_date\ndatetime.datetime(2012, 2, 26, 13, 0, 0, 775217, tzinfo=<UTC>)\n\n# Change values by changing the attributes, then calling save().\n>>> q.question_text = "What's up?"\n>>> q.save()\n\n# objects.all() displays all the questions in the database.\n>>> Question.objects.all()\n[<Question: Question object>]\nWait a minute. <Question: Question object> is, utterly, an unhelpful representation\nof this object. Let’s fix that by editing the Question model (in the\npolls/models.py file) and adding a\n__str__() method to both Question and\nChoice:
polls/models.pyfrom django.db import models\n\nclass Question(models.Model):\n # ...\n def __str__(self): # __unicode__ on Python 2\n return self.question_text\n\nclass Choice(models.Model):\n # ...\n def __str__(self): # __unicode__ on Python 2\n return self.choice_text\nIt’s important to add __str__() methods to your\nmodels, not only for your own convenience when dealing with the interactive\nprompt, but also because objects’ representations are used throughout Django’s\nautomatically-generated admin.
Note these are normal Python methods. Let’s add a custom method, just for\ndemonstration:
\npolls/models.pyimport datetime\n\nfrom django.db import models\nfrom django.utils import timezone\n\n\nclass Question(models.Model):\n # ...\n def was_published_recently(self):\n return self.pub_date >= timezone.now() - datetime.timedelta(days=1)\nNote the addition of import datetime and from django.utils import\ntimezone, to reference Python’s standard datetime module and Django’s\ntime-zone-related utilities in django.utils.timezone, respectively. If\nyou aren’t familiar with time zone handling in Python, you can learn more in\nthe time zone support docs.
Save these changes and start a new Python interactive shell by running\npython manage.py shell again:
>>> from polls.models import Question, Choice\n\n# Make sure our __str__() addition worked.\n>>> Question.objects.all()\n[<Question: What's up?>]\n\n# Django provides a rich database lookup API that's entirely driven by\n# keyword arguments.\n>>> Question.objects.filter(id=1)\n[<Question: What's up?>]\n>>> Question.objects.filter(question_text__startswith='What')\n[<Question: What's up?>]\n\n# Get the question that was published this year.\n>>> from django.utils import timezone\n>>> current_year = timezone.now().year\n>>> Question.objects.get(pub_date__year=current_year)\n<Question: What's up?>\n\n# Request an ID that doesn't exist, this will raise an exception.\n>>> Question.objects.get(id=2)\nTraceback (most recent call last):\n ...\nDoesNotExist: Question matching query does not exist.\n\n# Lookup by a primary key is the most common case, so Django provides a\n# shortcut for primary-key exact lookups.\n# The following is identical to Question.objects.get(id=1).\n>>> Question.objects.get(pk=1)\n<Question: What's up?>\n\n# Make sure our custom method worked.\n>>> q = Question.objects.get(pk=1)\n>>> q.was_published_recently()\nTrue\n\n# Give the Question a couple of Choices. The create call constructs a new\n# Choice object, does the INSERT statement, adds the choice to the set\n# of available choices and returns the new Choice object. Django creates\n# a set to hold the "other side" of a ForeignKey relation\n# (e.g. a question's choice) which can be accessed via the API.\n>>> q = Question.objects.get(pk=1)\n\n# Display any choices from the related object set -- none so far.\n>>> q.choice_set.all()\n[]\n\n# Create three choices.\n>>> q.choice_set.create(choice_text='Not much', votes=0)\n<Choice: Not much>\n>>> q.choice_set.create(choice_text='The sky', votes=0)\n<Choice: The sky>\n>>> c = q.choice_set.create(choice_text='Just hacking again', votes=0)\n\n# Choice objects have API access to their related Question objects.\n>>> c.question\n<Question: What's up?>\n\n# And vice versa: Question objects get access to Choice objects.\n>>> q.choice_set.all()\n[<Choice: Not much>, <Choice: The sky>, <Choice: Just hacking again>]\n>>> q.choice_set.count()\n3\n\n# The API automatically follows relationships as far as you need.\n# Use double underscores to separate relationships.\n# This works as many levels deep as you want; there's no limit.\n# Find all Choices for any question whose pub_date is in this year\n# (reusing the 'current_year' variable we created above).\n>>> Choice.objects.filter(question__pub_date__year=current_year)\n[<Choice: Not much>, <Choice: The sky>, <Choice: Just hacking again>]\n\n# Let's delete one of the choices. Use delete() for that.\n>>> c = q.choice_set.filter(choice_text__startswith='Just hacking')\n>>> c.delete()\nFor more information on model relations, see Accessing related objects. For more on how to use double underscores to perform\nfield lookups via the API, see Field lookups. For\nfull details on the database API, see our Database API reference.
\nWhen you’re comfortable with the API, read part 2 of this tutorial to get Django’s automatic admin working.
\n