=====================================
Writing your first Django app, part 1
=====================================

Let's learn by example.

Throughout this tutorial, we'll walk you through the creation of a basic
poll application.

It'll consist of two parts:

* A 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 :doc:`Django installed </intro/install>` already. You can
tell Django is installed and which version by running the following command
in a shell prompt (indicated by the $ prefix):

.. console::

    $ python -m django --version

If Django is installed, you should see the version of your installation. If it
isn't, you'll get an error telling "No module named django".

This tutorial is written for Django |version|, which supports Python 3.10 and
later. If the Django version doesn't match, you can refer to the tutorial for
your version of Django by using the version switcher at the bottom right corner
of this page, or update Django to the newest version. If you're using an older
version of Python, check :ref:`faq-python-version-support` to find a compatible
version of Django.

.. admonition:: Where to get help:

    If you're having trouble going through this tutorial, please head over to
    the :doc:`Getting Help</faq/help>` section of the FAQ.

Creating a project
==================

If this is your first time using Django, you'll have to take care of some
initial setup. Namely, you'll need to auto-generate some code that establishes a
Django :term:`project` -- a collection of settings for an instance of Django,
including database configuration, Django-specific options and
application-specific settings.

From the command line, ``cd`` into a directory where you'd like to store your
code and create a new directory named ``djangotutorial``. (This directory name
doesn't matter to Django; you can rename it to anything you like.)

.. console::

   $ mkdir djangotutorial

Then, run the following command to bootstrap a new Django project:

.. console::

   $ django-admin startproject mysite djangotutorial

This will create a project called ``mysite`` inside the ``djangotutorial``
directory. If it didn't work, see :ref:`troubleshooting-django-admin`.

.. note::

    You'll need to avoid naming projects after built-in Python or Django
    components. In particular, this means you should avoid using names like
    ``django`` (which will conflict with Django itself) or ``test`` (which
    conflicts with a built-in Python package).

Let's look at what :djadmin:`startproject` created:

.. code-block:: text

    djangotutorial/
        manage.py
        mysite/
            __init__.py
            settings.py
            urls.py
            asgi.py
            wsgi.py

These files are:

* :file:`manage.py`: A command-line utility that lets you interact with this
  Django project in various ways. You can read all the details about
  :file:`manage.py` in :doc:`/ref/django-admin`.

* :file:`mysite/`: A directory that is the actual Python package for your
  project. Its name is the Python package name you'll need to use to import
  anything inside it (e.g. ``mysite.urls``).

* :file:`mysite/__init__.py`: An empty file that tells Python that this
  directory should be considered a Python package. If you're a Python beginner,
  read :ref:`more about packages <tut-packages>` in the official Python docs.

* :file:`mysite/settings.py`: Settings/configuration for this Django
  project.  :doc:`/topics/settings` will tell you all about how settings
  work.

* :file:`mysite/urls.py`: The URL declarations for this Django project; a
  "table of contents" of your Django-powered site. You can read more about
  URLs in :doc:`/topics/http/urls`.

* :file:`mysite/asgi.py`: An entry-point for ASGI-compatible web servers to
  serve your project. See :doc:`/howto/deployment/asgi/index` for more details.

* :file:`mysite/wsgi.py`: An entry-point for WSGI-compatible web servers to
  serve your project. See :doc:`/howto/deployment/wsgi/index` for more details.

The development server
======================

Let's verify your Django project works. Change into the :file:`djangotutorial`
directory, if you haven't already, and run the following commands:

.. console::

   $ python manage.py runserver

You'll see the following output on the command line:

.. parsed-literal::

    Performing system checks...

    System check identified no issues (0 silenced).

    You have unapplied migrations; your app may not work properly until they are applied.
    Run 'python manage.py migrate' to apply them.

    |today| - 15:50:53
    Django version |version|, using settings 'mysite.settings'
    Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
    Quit the server with CONTROL-C.

.. note::
    Ignore the warning about unapplied database migrations for now; we'll deal
    with the database shortly.

Now that the server's running, visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/ with your web
browser. You'll see a "Congratulations!" page, with a rocket taking off.
It worked!

You've started the Django development server, a lightweight web server written
purely in Python. We've included this with Django so you can develop things
rapidly, without having to deal with configuring a production server -- such as
Apache -- until you're ready for production.

Now's a good time to note: **don't** use this server in anything resembling a
production environment. It's intended only for use while developing. (We're in
the business of making web frameworks, not web servers.)

(To serve the site on a different port, see the :djadmin:`runserver` reference.)

.. admonition:: Automatic reloading of :djadmin:`runserver`

    The development server automatically reloads Python code for each request
    as needed. You don't need to restart the server for code changes to take
    effect. However, some actions like adding files don't trigger a restart,
    so you'll have to restart the server in these cases.

Creating the Polls app
======================

Now that your environment -- a "project" -- is set up, you're set to start
doing work.

Each application you write in Django consists of a Python package that follows
a certain convention. Django comes with a utility that automatically generates
the basic directory structure of an app, so you can focus on writing code
rather than creating directories.

.. admonition:: Projects vs. apps

    What's the difference between a project and an app? An app is a web
    application that does something -- e.g., a blog system, a database of
    public records or a small poll app. A project is a collection of
    configuration and apps for a particular website. A project can contain
    multiple apps. An app can be in multiple projects.

Your apps can live anywhere in your :ref:`Python path <tut-searchpath>`. In
this tutorial, we'll create our poll app inside the ``djangotutorial`` folder.

To create your app, make sure you're in the same directory as :file:`manage.py`
and type this command:

.. console::

    $ python manage.py startapp polls

That'll create a directory :file:`polls`, which is laid out like this:

.. code-block:: text

    polls/
        __init__.py
        admin.py
        apps.py
        migrations/
            __init__.py
        models.py
        tests.py
        views.py

This directory structure will house the poll application.

Write your first view
=====================

Let's write the first view. Open the file ``polls/views.py``
and put the following Python code in it:

.. code-block:: python
    :caption: ``polls/views.py``

    from django.http import HttpResponse


    def index(request):
        return HttpResponse("Hello, world. You're at the polls index.")

This is the most basic view possible in Django. To access it in a browser, we
need to map it to a URL - and for this we need to define a URL configuration,
or "URLconf" for short. These URL configurations are defined inside each
Django app, and they are Python files named ``urls.py``.

To define a URLconf for the ``polls`` app, create a file ``polls/urls.py``
with the following content:

.. code-block:: python
    :caption: ``polls/urls.py``

    from django.urls import path

    from . import views

    urlpatterns = [
        path("", views.index, name="index"),
    ]

Your app directory should now look like:

.. code-block:: text

    polls/
        __init__.py
        admin.py
        apps.py
        migrations/
            __init__.py
        models.py
        tests.py
        urls.py
        views.py

The next step is to configure the global URLconf in the ``mysite`` project to
include the URLconf defined in ``polls.urls``. To do this, add an import for
``django.urls.include`` in ``mysite/urls.py`` and insert an
:func:`~django.urls.include` in the ``urlpatterns`` list, so you have:

.. code-block:: python
    :caption: ``mysite/urls.py``

    from django.contrib import admin
    from django.urls import include, path

    urlpatterns = [
        path("polls/", include("polls.urls")),
        path("admin/", admin.site.urls),
    ]

The :func:`~django.urls.path` function expects at least two arguments:
``route`` and ``view``.
The :func:`~django.urls.include` function allows referencing other URLconfs.
Whenever Django encounters :func:`~django.urls.include`, it chops off whatever
part of the URL matched up to that point and sends the remaining string to the
included URLconf for further processing.

The idea behind :func:`~django.urls.include` is to make it easy to
plug-and-play URLs. Since polls are in their own URLconf
(``polls/urls.py``), they can be placed under "/polls/", or under
"/fun_polls/", or under "/content/polls/", or any other path root, and the
app will still work.

.. admonition:: When to use :func:`~django.urls.include()`

    You should always use ``include()`` when you include other URL patterns.
    The only exception is ``admin.site.urls``, which is a pre-built URLconf
    provided by Django for the default admin site.

You have now wired an ``index`` view into the URLconf. Verify it's working with
the following command:

.. console::

   $ python manage.py runserver

Go to http://localhost:8000/polls/ in your browser, and you should see the
text "*Hello, world. You're at the polls index.*", which you defined in the
``index`` view.

.. admonition:: Page not found?

    If you get an error page here, check that you're going to
    http://localhost:8000/polls/ and not http://localhost:8000/.

When you're comfortable with the basic request and response flow, read
:doc:`part 2 of this tutorial </intro/tutorial02>` to start working with the
database.
