Django Models

Django Models

 Topics
 Creating simple models
 Relationships between models
 Advanced usage
 Querying Django database

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 Review MTV Architecture
 When a Django application receives a request, it uses URL patterns to decide
which view to select
 View manages the logic/control flow portion of a project
 Models are used to manage the database
 Templates deal with the view of HTML pages to be returned

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More on Models
 Models:
 Create the data layer of a Django app
 Define database structure
 Allow us to query from the DB
 Contain “models.py” file
 A model is inherited from django.db.models.Model

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Why Use ORM?
 Django provides rich db access layer

 Bridges underlying relational db with Python’s object

oriented nature

 Portability: support multiple database backends

 Safety: less prone to security issues (e.g., SQL injection

attacks) arising from malformed or poorly protected
query strings.

 Encapsulation: Easy integration with programming

language; ability to define arbitrary instance methods

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Defining Models
 Model is an object that inherits from Model class.
 Model → represented by a table in the db
 Field → represented by a table column

 Models are defined and stored in the APP’s models.py file.

 models.py is automatically created when you start the APP
 Contains one line: from django.db import models
 This allows you to import the base model from Django

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Defining Models: An Example

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Field Types – For Textual Data

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Field Types – For Numeric and Miscellaneous Data

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Field Types – Null and Blank

null
If True, Django will store empty values as NULL in the database.
Default is False.

blank
If True, the field is allowed to be blank. Default is False.

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Primary Keys

 By default, Django automatically creates a primary key

field.
 All models without an explicit primary key field are given
an id attribute (of type AutoField).
 id = models.BigAutoField(primary_key=True)

 Autofield: behaves like normal integers; incremented for

each new row in table.
 To define your own primary key:
 specify primary_key = True for one of your model fields.
 this field becomes the primary key for the table.
 it is now your responsibility to ensure this field is unique.

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Example
 Person Model:

from django.db import models

class Person(models.Model):
first_name= models.CharField(max_length=30)
last_name = models.CharField(max_length=30)
The above model is created in database as:
CREATE TABLE myapp_person (
"id" NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
"first_name" (30) NOT NULL,
"last_name" (30) NOT NULL );

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Example

 Employee Model:

class Employee(models.Model):
emp_no = models.IntegerField(default=999,
primary_key = True)
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
age = models.IntegerField()
email = models.EmailField(max_length=100)
start_date = models.DateField()

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 Field Types – Foreign Key and Many-to-Many

class Company(models.Model):
co_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)

class Car(models.Model):
type = models.Charfield(max_length=20)
company = models.ForeignKey(Company, on_delete=models.CASCADE)

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Many-to-Many Relationship

 Uses the ManytoManyField.

 Syntax is similar to ForeignKey field.
 Needs to be defined on one side of the relationship only.
 Django automatically grants necessary methods and
attributes to other side.
 Relationship is symmetrical by default → doesn’t matter
which side it is defined on.

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Example

class Book(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
length = models.IntegerField()
pub_date = models.DateField()

class Author(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
books = models.ManyToManyField(Book)

NOTE: The Many-to-Many relation is only defined in one model.

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Migrations

 Migrations: propagate changes to your models (adding a

field, deleting a model, etc.) into your database
schema.
 Prior to version 1.7, Django only supported adding new
models to the database; could not alter or remove existing
models.
 Used the syncdb command (the predecessor to migrate)

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When do we need Migrations?

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Migration Commands

 makemigrations : responsible for creating new

migrations based on the changes made to your models.
 sqlmigrate: displays the SQL statements for a
migration.
 migrate: run all the migrations that have not yet run.

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Example of Migrations
class Author(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
city = models.CharField(max_length=50, default='Windsor')

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Model Inheritance
 Models can inherit from one another, similar to regular
Python classes.

 Previously defined Empolyee class

class Employee(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
age = models.IntegerField()
email = models.EmailField(max_length=100)
start_date = models. DateField()

 Suppose there are 2 types of employees

 programmers and supervisors

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Model Inheritance
 Option 1: Create 2 different models
 duplicate all common fields and violate DRY principle.

 Option 2: Inherit from Employee class

class Supervisor(Employee):
dept = models.CharField(max_length=50)

class Programmer(Employee):
boss = models.ForeignKey(Supervisor, on_delete=models.CASCADE)

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Adding Methods to Models
 Since a model is represented as a class, it can have attributes
and methods.
 One useful method is the __str__ method which is a dunder
method
 It controls how the object will be displayed.

class Book(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
length = models.IntegerField()
pub_date = models.DateField()
def __str__(self):
return self.title

Other dunder methods = del, lt, add, sub, mul, abs, len and so on

https://www.pythonmorsels.com/what-are-dunder-methods/

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Meta Inner Class
 Meta class: Used to inform Django of various metadata about the model.
 E.g., display options, ordering, multi-field uniqueness etc.

class Employee(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
age = models.IntegerField()
email = models.EmailField(max_length=100)
start_date = models.DateField()

class Meta:
ordering = [‘name’]

Other examples: verbose_name, unique_together, etc

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Query Syntax

 Querying makes use of two similar classes: Manager and

QuerySet
 Manager: Interface through which database query operations
are provided to Django models
 At least one Manager exists for every model
 By default, Django adds a Manager with the name objects to every
Django model class.

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Manager Class

 Manager class has the following methods:

 all: returns a QuerySet containing all db records for the
specified model
 filter: returns a QuerySet containing model records
matching specific criteria
 exclude: inverse of filter; return records that don’t match
the criteria
 get: return a single record (model instance) matching
criteria
 raises error if no match or multiple matches.

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Query Examples
class Company(models.Model):
co_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
class Car(models.Model):
type = models.Charfield(max_length=20)
company = models.ForeignKey(Company,
on_delete=models.CASCADE)

 Get all cars in the db.

car_list = Car.objects.all()
 Get the car of type ‘Lexus’.
car1 = Car.objects.get(type=‘Lexus’)
 Get all the cars made by ‘Ford’
company = Company.objects.get(co_name=‘Ford’)
cars = company.car_set.all()
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.2/ref/models/relations/

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 QuerySet
 QuerySet: Can be thought of as a list of model class instances
(records/rows)
 above is a simplification – actually much more powerful
 QuerySet examples:
List of all books:
all_books = Book.objects.all()
List of books with the word “Python” in title:
python_books = Book.objects.filter(title__contains=“Python”)
The book with id == 1:
book = Book.objects.get(id=1)

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QuerySet
 QuerySet as container: QuerySet implements a partial list
interface and can be iterated over, indexed, sliced, and
measured.
 Example 1:
python_books = Book.objects.filter(title__contains=“Python’)
for book in python_books:
print(book.title)

Example 2:
all_books = Book.objects.all()
How many books in db?
num_books = len(all_books)
Get the first book:
first_book = all_books[0]
Get a list of first five books:
first_five = all_books[:5]

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 QuerySet
 QuerySet as building blocks: QuerySets can be composed into complex or
nested queries.

 Example:
python_books = Book.objects.filter(title__contains=“Python’)
short_python_books = python_books.filter(length__lt=100)

Equivalently:

short_python_books =
Book.objects.filter(title__contains=“Python’).filter(length__lt=
100)

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References
 https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.2/intro/tutorial02
 https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.2/topics/db/mo
dels/
 https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.2/topics/db/ma
nagers/
 https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.2/topics/db/exa
mples/many_to_many/
 https://levelup.gitconnected.com/python-dunder-
methods-ea98ceabad15
 https://holycoders.com/python-dunder-special-
methods/
 Python Web Development with Django, by J. Forcier et
al.
 Slides from Dr. Arunita and Dr. Saja

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