Django Routing Sample

Open-source sample provided by AppSeed to explain Django Routing mechanism. All commands used to code the project and also the relevant updates are listed below. For newcomers, Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Built by experienced developers, it takes care of much of the hassle of Web development, so you can focus on writing your app without needing to reinvent the wheel.

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Chech Python Version

$ python --version
Python 3.8.4 <-- All good

Create/activate a virtual environment

$ # Virtualenv modules installation (Unix based systems)
$ virtualenv env
$ source env/bin/activate
$
$ # Virtualenv modules installation (Windows based systems)
$ # virtualenv env
$ # .\env\Scripts\activate

Install Django

$ pip install django

Create Django Project

$ mkdir django-sample-urls
$ cd django-sample-urls

Inside the new directory, we will invoke startproject subcommand

django-admin startproject config .

Note: Take into account that . at the end of the command.

Setup database

$ python manage.py makemigrations
$ python manage.py migrate

Start the app

$ python manage.py runserver 

Create sample app

$ python manage.py startapp sample

Add a simple route - sample/views.py

def hello(request): 
    return HttpResponse("Hello Django") 

The browser output

Configure Django to use the new route

Edit config/urls.py as below:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls  import path
from django.conf.urls import include, url   # <-- NEW
from sample.views import hello              # <-- NEW

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    url('', hello),                         # <-- NEW
]

In other words, the default route is served by hello method defined in sample/views.py

Add dynamic content

Let's create a new route that shows a random number - sample/views.py.

...
from random import random
...
def myrandom(request): 
    return HttpResponse("Random - " + str( random() ) ) 

The new method invoke random() from Python core library, convert the result to a string and return the result.

The browser output

Display a random image

The controller code can be found in sample/views.py.

...
import requests
...
def randomimage(request):
    r = requests.get('http://thecatapi.com/api/images/get?format=src&type=png')
    return HttpResponse( r.content, content_type="image/png")

To see the effects in the browser, the routing should be updated acordingly.

# Contents of config/urls.py
...
from sample.views import hello, myrandom, randomimage # <-- Updated 
...
urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/'     , admin.site.urls),
    url('randomimage' , randomimage),                 # <-- New
    url('random'      , myrandom),
    url(''            , hello), 
]

The browser output

For support and more Django Samples join AppSeed.

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Django Routing - Open-source Sample provided by AppSeed.