Django 4.2.20 documentation

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Django documentation contents

• Getting started
  • Django at a glance
    • Design your model
    • Install it
    • Enjoy the free API
    • A dynamic admin interface: it’s not just scaffolding – it’s the whole house
    • Design your URLs
    • Write your views
    • Design your templates
    • This is just the surface
  • Quick install guide
    • Install Python
    • Set up a database
    • Install Django
    • Verifying
    • That’s it!
  • Writing your first Django app, part 1
    • Creating a project
    • The development server
    • Creating the Polls app
    • Write your first view
  • Writing your first Django app, part 2
    • Database setup
    • Creating models
    • Activating models
    • Playing with the API
    • Introducing the Django Admin
  • Writing your first Django app, part 3
    • Overview
    • Writing more views
    • Write views that actually do something
    • Raising a 404 error
    • Use the template system
    • Removing hardcoded URLs in templates
    • Namespacing URL names
  • Writing your first Django app, part 4
    • Write a minimal form
    • Use generic views: Less code is better
  • Writing your first Django app, part 5
    • Introducing automated testing
    • Basic testing strategies
    • Writing our first test
    • Test a view
    • When testing, more is better
    • Further testing
    • What’s next?
  • Writing your first Django app, part 6
    • Customize your app’s look and feel
    • Adding a background-image
  • Writing your first Django app, part 7
    • Customize the admin form
    • Adding related objects
    • Customize the admin change list
    • Customize the admin look and feel
    • Customize the admin index page
  • Writing your first Django app, part 8
    • Installing Django Debug Toolbar
    • Getting help from others
    • Installing other third-party packages
    • What’s next?
  • Advanced tutorial: How to write reusable apps
    • Reusability matters
    • Your project and your reusable app
    • Installing some prerequisites
    • Packaging your app
    • Using your own package
    • Publishing your app
    • Installing Python packages with a virtual environment
  • What to read next
    • Finding documentation
    • How the documentation is organized
    • How documentation is updated
    • Where to get it
    • Differences between versions
  • Writing your first patch for Django
    • Introduction
    • Code of Conduct
    • Installing Git
    • Getting a copy of Django’s development version
    • Running Django’s test suite for the first time
    • Working on a feature
    • Creating a branch for your patch
    • Writing some tests for your ticket
    • Writing the code for your ticket
    • Running Django’s test suite for the second time
    • Writing Documentation
    • Previewing your changes
    • Committing the changes in the patch
    • Pushing the commit and making a pull request
    • Next steps
• Using Django
  • How to install Django
    • Install Python
    • Install Apache and mod_wsgi
    • Get your database running
    • Install the Django code
  • Models and databases
    • Models
    • Making queries
    • Aggregation
    • Search
    • Managers
    • Performing raw SQL queries
    • Database transactions
    • Multiple databases
    • Tablespaces
    • Database access optimization
    • Database instrumentation
    • Fixtures
    • Examples of model relationship API usage
  • Handling HTTP requests
    • URL dispatcher
    • Writing views
    • View decorators
    • File Uploads
    • Django shortcut functions
    • Generic views
    • Middleware
    • How to use sessions
  • Working with forms
    • HTML forms
    • Django’s role in forms
    • Forms in Django
    • Building a form
    • More about Django Form classes
    • Working with form templates
    • Further topics
  • Templates
    • The Django template language
    • Support for template engines
  • Class-based views
    • Introduction to class-based views
    • Built-in class-based generic views
    • Form handling with class-based views
    • Using mixins with class-based views
    • Basic examples
    • Usage in your URLconf
    • Subclassing generic views
    • Asynchronous class-based views
  • Migrations
    • The Commands
    • Backend Support
    • Workflow
    • Transactions
    • Dependencies
    • Migration files
    • Adding migrations to apps
    • Reversing migrations
    • Historical models
    • Considerations when removing model fields
    • Data Migrations
    • Squashing migrations
    • Serializing values
    • Supporting multiple Django versions
  • Managing files
    • Using files in models
    • The File object
    • File storage
  • Testing in Django
    • Writing and running tests
    • Testing tools
    • Advanced testing topics
  • User authentication in Django
    • Overview
    • Installation
    • Usage
  • Django’s cache framework
    • Setting up the cache
    • The per-site cache
    • The per-view cache
    • Template fragment caching
    • The low-level cache API
    • Asynchronous support
    • Downstream caches
    • Using Vary headers
    • Controlling cache: Using other headers
    • Order of MIDDLEWARE
  • Conditional View Processing
    • The condition decorator
    • Shortcuts for only computing one value
    • Using the decorators with other HTTP methods
    • Comparison with middleware conditional processing
  • Cryptographic signing
    • Protecting SECRET_KEY and SECRET_KEY_FALLBACKS
    • Using the low-level API
  • Sending email
    • Quick example
    • send_mail()
    • send_mass_mail()
    • mail_admins()
    • mail_managers()
    • Examples
    • Preventing header injection
    • The EmailMessage class
    • Email backends
    • Configuring email for development
  • Internationalization and localization
    • Overview
    • Definitions
  • Logging
    • Overview
    • Security implications
    • Configuring logging
  • Pagination
    • The Paginator class
    • Example
    • Paginating a ListView
    • Using Paginator in a view function
  • Security in Django
    • Cross site scripting (XSS) protection
    • Cross site request forgery (CSRF) protection
    • SQL injection protection
    • Clickjacking protection
    • SSL/HTTPS
    • Host header validation
    • Referrer policy
    • Cross-origin opener policy
    • Session security
    • User-uploaded content
    • Additional security topics
  • Performance and optimization
    • Introduction
    • General approaches
    • Caching
    • Understanding laziness
    • Databases
    • HTTP performance
    • Template performance
    • Using different versions of available software
  • Serializing Django objects
    • Serializing data
    • Deserializing data
    • Serialization formats
    • Natural keys
  • Django settings
    • The basics
    • Designating the settings
    • Default settings
    • Using settings in Python code
    • Altering settings at runtime
    • Security
    • Available settings
    • Creating your own settings
    • Using settings without setting DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
  • Signals
    • Listening to signals
    • Defining and sending signals
    • Disconnecting signals
  • System check framework
    • Writing your own checks
  • External packages
    • Localflavor
    • Comments
    • Formtools
  • Asynchronous support
    • Async views
    • Async safety
    • Async adapter functions
• “How-to” guides
  • How to authenticate using REMOTE_USER
    • Configuration
    • Using REMOTE_USER on login pages only
  • How to use Django’s CSRF protection
    • Using CSRF protection with AJAX
    • Using CSRF protection in Jinja2 templates
    • Using the decorator method
    • Handling rejected requests
    • Using CSRF protection with caching
    • Testing and CSRF protection
    • Edge cases
    • CSRF protection in reusable applications
  • How to create custom django-admin commands
    • Accepting optional arguments
    • Management commands and locales
    • Testing
    • Overriding commands
    • Command objects
  • How to create custom model fields
    • Introduction
    • Background theory
    • Writing a field subclass
    • Writing a FileField subclass
  • How to write custom lookups
    • A lookup example
    • A transformer example
    • Writing an efficient abs__lt lookup
    • A bilateral transformer example
    • Writing alternative implementations for existing lookups
    • How Django determines the lookups and transforms which are used
  • How to implement a custom template backend
    • Custom backends
    • Debug integration for custom engines
  • How to create custom template tags and filters
    • Code layout
    • Writing custom template filters
    • Writing custom template tags
  • How to write a custom storage class
    • Use your custom storage engine
  • How to deploy Django
    • How to deploy with WSGI
    • How to deploy with ASGI
    • Deployment checklist
  • How to upgrade Django to a newer version
    • Required Reading
    • Dependencies
    • Resolving deprecation warnings
    • Installation
    • Testing
    • Deployment
  • How to manage error reporting
    • Email reports
    • Filtering error reports
  • How to provide initial data for models
    • Provide initial data with migrations
    • Provide data with fixtures
  • How to integrate Django with a legacy database
    • Give Django your database parameters
    • Auto-generate the models
    • Install the core Django tables
    • Test and tweak
  • How to configure and use logging
    • Make a basic logging call
    • Customize logging configuration
  • How to create CSV output
    • Using the Python CSV library
    • Using the template system
    • Other text-based formats
  • How to create PDF files
    • Install ReportLab
    • Write your view
    • Other formats
  • How to override templates
    • Overriding from the project’s templates directory
    • Overriding from an app’s template directory
    • Extending an overridden template
  • How to manage static files (e.g. images, JavaScript, CSS)
    • Configuring static files
    • Serving static files during development
    • Serving files uploaded by a user during development
    • Testing
    • Deployment
    • Learn more
  • How to deploy static files
    • Serving static files in production
    • Learn more
  • How to install Django on Windows
    • Install Python
    • About pip
    • Setting up a virtual environment
    • Install Django
    • Colored terminal output
    • Common pitfalls
  • How to create database migrations
    • Data migrations and multiple databases
    • Migrations that add unique fields
    • Controlling the order of migrations
    • Migrating data between third-party apps
    • Changing a ManyToManyField to use a through model
    • Changing an unmanaged model to managed
  • How to delete a Django application
• Django FAQ
  • FAQ: General
    • Why does this project exist?
    • What does “Django” mean, and how do you pronounce it?
    • Is Django stable?
    • Does Django scale?
    • Who’s behind this?
    • How is Django licensed?
    • Why does Django include Python’s license file?
    • Which sites use Django?
    • Django appears to be a MVC framework, but you call the Controller the “view”, and the View the “template”. How come you don’t use the standard names?
    • <Framework X> does <feature Y> – why doesn’t Django?
    • Why did you write all of Django from scratch, instead of using other Python libraries?
    • Is Django a content-management-system (CMS)?
    • How can I download the Django documentation to read it offline?
    • How do I cite Django?
  • FAQ: Installation
    • How do I get started?
    • What are Django’s prerequisites?
    • What Python version can I use with Django?
    • What Python version should I use with Django?
    • Should I use the stable version or development version?
  • FAQ: Using Django
    • Why do I get an error about importing DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE?
    • I can’t stand your template language. Do I have to use it?
    • Do I have to use your model/database layer?
    • How do I use image and file fields?
    • How do I make a variable available to all my templates?
  • FAQ: Getting Help
    • How do I do X? Why doesn’t Y work? Where can I go to get help?
    • Why hasn’t my message appeared on django-users?
    • Nobody answered my question! What should I do?
    • I think I’ve found a bug! What should I do?
    • I think I’ve found a security problem! What should I do?
  • FAQ: Databases and models
    • How can I see the raw SQL queries Django is running?
    • Can I use Django with a preexisting database?
    • If I make changes to a model, how do I update the database?
    • Do Django models support multiple-column primary keys?
    • Does Django support NoSQL databases?
    • How do I add database-specific options to my CREATE TABLE statements, such as specifying MyISAM as the table type?
  • FAQ: The admin
    • I can’t log in. When I enter a valid username and password, it just brings up the login page again, with no error messages.
    • I can’t log in. When I enter a valid username and password, it brings up the login page again, with a “Please enter a correct username and password” error.
    • How do I automatically set a field’s value to the user who last edited the object in the admin?
    • How do I limit admin access so that objects can only be edited by the users who created them?
    • My admin-site CSS and images showed up fine using the development server, but they’re not displaying when using mod_wsgi.
    • My “list_filter” contains a ManyToManyField, but the filter doesn’t display.
    • Some objects aren’t appearing in the admin.
    • How can I customize the functionality of the admin interface?
    • The dynamically-generated admin site is ugly! How can I change it?
    • What browsers are supported for using the admin?
  • FAQ: Contributing code
    • How can I get started contributing code to Django?
    • I submitted a bug fix in the ticket system several weeks ago. Why are you ignoring my patch?
    • When and how might I remind the team of a patch I care about?
    • But I’ve reminded you several times and you keep ignoring my patch!
    • I’m sure my ticket is absolutely 100% perfect, can I mark it as “Ready For Checkin” myself?
  • Troubleshooting
    • Problems running django-admin
    • Miscellaneous
• API Reference
  • Applications
    • Projects and applications
    • Configuring applications
    • Application configuration
    • Application registry
    • Initialization process
  • System check framework
    • API reference
    • Builtin tags
    • Core system checks
    • contrib app checks
  • Built-in class-based views API
    • Base views
    • Generic display views
    • Generic editing views
    • Generic date views
    • Class-based views mixins
    • Class-based generic views - flattened index
    • Specification
    • Base vs Generic views
  • Clickjacking Protection
    • An example of clickjacking
    • Preventing clickjacking
    • How to use it
    • Limitations
  • contrib packages
    • The Django admin site
    • django.contrib.auth
    • The contenttypes framework
    • The flatpages app
    • GeoDjango
    • django.contrib.humanize
    • The messages framework
    • django.contrib.postgres
    • The redirects app
    • The sitemap framework
    • The “sites” framework
    • The staticfiles app
    • The syndication feed framework
    • admin
    • auth
    • contenttypes
    • flatpages
    • gis
    • humanize
    • messages
    • postgres
    • redirects
    • sessions
    • sites
    • sitemaps
    • syndication
    • Other add-ons
  • Cross Site Request Forgery protection
    • How it works
    • Limitations
    • Utilities
    • Settings
    • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Databases
    • General notes
    • PostgreSQL notes
    • MariaDB notes
    • MySQL notes
    • SQLite notes
    • Oracle notes
    • Subclassing the built-in database backends
    • Using a 3rd-party database backend
  • django-admin and manage.py
    • Usage
    • Available commands
    • Commands provided by applications
    • Default options
    • Extra niceties
  • Running management commands from your code
    • Output redirection
  • Django Exceptions
    • Django Core Exceptions
    • URL Resolver exceptions
    • Database Exceptions
    • HTTP Exceptions
    • Sessions Exceptions
    • Transaction Exceptions
    • Testing Framework Exceptions
    • Python Exceptions
  • File handling
    • The File object
    • File storage API
    • Uploaded Files and Upload Handlers
  • Forms
    • The Forms API
    • Form fields
    • Model Form Functions
    • Formset Functions
    • The form rendering API
    • Widgets
    • Form and field validation
  • Logging
    • Django’s default logging configuration
    • Django logging extensions
  • Middleware
    • Available middleware
    • Middleware ordering
  • Migration Operations
    • Schema Operations
    • Special Operations
    • Writing your own
  • Models
    • Model field reference
    • Field attribute reference
    • Model index reference
    • Constraints reference
    • Model _meta API
    • Related objects reference
    • Model class reference
    • Model Meta options
    • Model instance reference
    • QuerySet API reference
    • Lookup API reference
    • Query Expressions
    • Conditional Expressions
    • Database Functions
  • Paginator
    • Paginator class
    • Page class
    • Exceptions
  • Request and response objects
    • Quick overview
    • HttpRequest objects
    • QueryDict objects
    • HttpResponse objects
    • JsonResponse objects
    • StreamingHttpResponse objects
    • FileResponse objects
    • HttpResponseBase class
  • SchemaEditor
    • Methods
    • Attributes
  • Settings
    • Core Settings
    • Auth
    • Messages
    • Sessions
    • Sites
    • Static Files
    • Core Settings Topical Index
  • Signals
    • Model signals
    • Management signals
    • Request/response signals
    • Test signals
    • Database Wrappers
  • Templates
    • The Django template language
    • Built-in template tags and filters
    • The Django template language: for Python programmers
  • TemplateResponse and SimpleTemplateResponse
    • SimpleTemplateResponse objects
    • TemplateResponse objects
    • The rendering process
    • Using TemplateResponse and SimpleTemplateResponse
  • Unicode data
    • Creating the database
    • General string handling
    • Models
    • Templates
    • Files
    • Form submission
  • django.urls utility functions
    • reverse()
    • reverse_lazy()
    • resolve()
    • get_script_prefix()
  • django.urls functions for use in URLconfs
    • path()
    • re_path()
    • include()
    • register_converter()
  • django.conf.urls functions for use in URLconfs
    • static()
    • handler400
    • handler403
    • handler404
    • handler500
  • Django Utils
    • django.utils.cache
    • django.utils.dateparse
    • django.utils.decorators
    • django.utils.encoding
    • django.utils.feedgenerator
    • django.utils.functional
    • django.utils.html
    • django.utils.http
    • django.utils.module_loading
    • django.utils.safestring
    • django.utils.text
    • django.utils.timezone
    • django.utils.translation
  • Validators
    • Writing validators
    • How validators are run
    • Built-in validators
  • Built-in Views
    • Serving files in development
    • Error views
• Meta-documentation and miscellany
  • API stability
    • What “stable” means
    • Stable APIs
    • Exceptions
  • Design philosophies
    • Overall
    • Models
    • Database API
    • URL design
    • Template system
    • Views
    • Cache Framework
  • Third-party distributions of Django
    • For distributors
• Glossary
• Release notes
  • Final releases
    • 4.2 release
    • 4.1 release
    • 4.0 release
    • 3.2 release
    • 3.1 release
    • 3.0 release
    • 2.2 release
    • 2.1 release
    • 2.0 release
    • 1.11 release
    • 1.10 release
    • 1.9 release
    • 1.8 release
    • 1.7 release
    • 1.6 release
    • 1.5 release
    • 1.4 release
    • 1.3 release
    • 1.2 release
    • 1.1 release
    • 1.0 release
    • Pre-1.0 releases
  • Security releases
• Django internals
  • Contributing to Django
    • Work on the Django framework
    • Join the Django community ❤️
  • Mailing lists and Forum
    • Django Forum
    • django-users
    • django-developers
    • django-announce
    • django-updates
  • Organization of the Django Project
    • Principles
    • Mergers
    • Releasers
    • Steering council
    • Changing the organization
  • Django’s security policies
    • Reporting security issues
    • Supported versions
    • How Django discloses security issues
    • Who receives advance notification
    • Requesting notifications
  • Django’s release process
    • Official releases
    • Release cadence
    • Deprecation policy
    • Supported versions
    • Release process
  • Django Deprecation Timeline
    • 5.1
    • 5.0
    • 4.1
    • 4.0
    • 3.1
    • 3.0
    • 2.1
    • 2.0
    • 1.10
    • 1.9
    • 1.8
    • 1.7
    • 1.6
    • 1.5
    • 1.4
    • 1.3
  • The Django source code repository
    • High-level overview
    • The main branch
    • Stable branches
    • Tags
  • How is Django Formed?
    • Overview
    • Prerequisites
    • Pre-release tasks
    • Preparing for release
    • Actually rolling the release
    • Making the release(s) available to the public
    • Post-release
    • New stable branch tasks
    • Notes on setting the VERSION tuple

Indices, glossary and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Glossary

Last update:

Jun 03, 2025

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