Django documentation

Everything you need to know about Django.

First steps

• Getting started: Django at a glance | Installation | Third-party distributions

The tutorial takes you by the hand through a series of steps to create a web application.

• Tutorial: Part 1: Setting things up | Part 2: Models and the admin site | Part 3: Views and templates | Part 4: Forms and generic views | Part 5: Testing | Part 6: Static files | Part 7: Customizing the admin site | Part 8: Adding third-party packages

After that, there are some tutorials dedicated to particular topics.

• Follow-on tutorials: How to write reusable apps | Writing your first contribution to Django

The model layer

A Django model is a representation of the objects your application will handle, described in Python, and stored in a database.

• Models: Introduction to models | Field types | Custom fields | Indexes | Meta options | Model class | Managers

• Model instances and relations: Instance methods | Accessing related objects | Content types and generic relations

• Queries: Making queries | QuerySet method reference | Lookup expressions | Query Expressions | Conditional Expressions | Custom lookups | Aggregation | Database Functions | Raw SQL

• Migrations: Introduction to Migrations | Operations reference | SchemaEditor | Writing migrations

• Other: Transactions | Search | Multiple databases | Providing initial data | PostgreSQL specific features

The view layer

Django views contain the logic responsible for processing a user’s request and for returning the response.

• The basics: URLconfs | View functions | Shortcuts | Decorators | Asynchronous Support | Conditional view processing

• Reference: Built-in Views | Request/response objects | TemplateResponse objects

• Class-based views: Introduction to class-based views | Built-in display views | Built-in editing views | Using mixins | API reference | Flattened index

• Middleware: Introduction to middleware | Built-in middleware classes

• Other output formats: Generating CSV | Generating PDF

The template layer

The template layer provides a designer-friendly syntax for rendering the information to be presented to the user. Template functionality can also be customized.

• The basics: Templates | Language overview | Built-in tags and filters | Humanization | Template API

• Customization and extension: Custom tags and filters | Custom template backend

Other core functionality

• Configuration: Django settings | Full list of settings | Applications

• Exceptions: Django exceptions

• Management commands: django-admin and manage.py | Adding custom commands

User-facing features

• Admin: Admin site | Admin actions | Admin documentation generator

• Content: Flatpages | Redirects | Pagination | Messages framework

• Forms: Working with forms | The Forms API | Built-in fields | Built-in widgets | Forms for models | Integrating media | Formsets | Customizing validation

• Internationalization and localization: Introduction to internationalization | Translation | Format localization | Time zones | Unicode data

• Authentication: User authentication | Using the authentication system | Password management | Customizing authentication | API Reference

• Geographic data and representation: GeoDjango

Developer-facing features

• Core features: The sites framework | Sessions | Static files management

• Project-level features: Caching | Logging | System check framework

• Backend processing: Tasks framework | Signals

• Data management: Serialization | Data validation

• Discoverability: Sitemaps | Syndication feeds (RSS/Atom)

Resources and interfaces

• Databases: Supported databases | Legacy databases

• Storage: File uploads | File objects | Storage API | Managing files | Custom storage

• Deployment: How to deploy Django | WSGI servers | ASGI servers | Deploying static files | Tracking code errors by email | Deployment checklist

• Email: Sending messages

Quality and dependability

A key concern in Django’s design philosophy is to make it easier to build applications that work safely and efficiently, in the real world.

• Testing: Introduction | Writing and running tests | Included testing tools | Advanced topics

• Security: Security overview | Disclosed security issues in Django | Clickjacking protection | Cross Site Request Forgery protection | Cryptographic signing | Security Middleware | Content Security Policy

• Performance: Performance and optimization overview | Optimize database access

The Django open-source project

Django moves forward steadily, thanks to a rigorous development process and a supportive community that welcomes new contributors:

• Community: Contributing to Django | Team organization | The Django source code repository | Mailing lists and Forum

• Processes and policies: The release process | Security policy | Design philosophies

• Django over time: API stability | Release notes and upgrading instructions | Deprecation Timeline

Getting help

Having trouble? We’d like to help!

• Try the FAQ – it’s got answers to many common questions.

• Looking for specific information? Try the Index, Module Index or the detailed table of contents.

• Not found anything? See FAQ: Getting Help for information on getting support and asking questions to the community.

• Report bugs with Django in our ticket tracker.

How the documentation is organized

The table of contents above unfolds Django’s documentation thematically. Pages themselves are organized into an underlying hierarchy according to type, to help navigate the site:

• The tutorial takes you by the hand through a series of steps to create a web application. Start here if you’re new to Django or web application development.

• Topic guides explain Django’s functionality in detail and provide an overview of key concepts and how individual parts of Django can be used.

• Reference guides contain technical reference for APIs and other aspects of Django’s machinery.

• How-to guides guide you through the work to address real-world problems and use-cases.