Tutorial for building create, retrieve, update and delete website application with Django and SQLite (default django database)

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes. See deployment for notes on how to deploy the project on a live system.

Make sure you have installed Python 3 and virtual environment on your device

File structure in django by default has a structure like below

* django-crud-sqlite/
  |--- rattlesnake/
  |    |--- app/
  |    |    |--- migrations/
  |    |    |--- templates/
  |    |    |--- __init__.py
  |    |    |--- admin.py
  |    |    |--- apps.py
  |    |    |--- models.py
  |    |    |--- tests.py
  |    |    |--- views.py
  |    |--- rattlesnake/
  |    |    |--- __init__.py
  |    |    |--- settings.py
  |    |    |--- urls.py
  |    |    |--- wsgi.py
  |    |--- manage.py
  |--- venv/

A step by step series of examples that tell you how to get a development env running

1. Create virtual environment and activate inside your django-crud-sqlite/ directory according the above structure

virtualenv venv
> On windows -> venv\Scripts\activate
> On linux -> . env/bin/activate

2. Install django and start new project inside your django-crud-sqlite/ directory according the above structure

pip install django
django-admin startproject rattlesnake
cd rattlesnake

3. Create new app, from rattlesnake/ directory will create create new app/ to store the collection

> On Windows -> manage.py startapp app
> On Linux, etc -> ./manage.py startapp app

4. Register your app into rattlesnake project, the app to INSTALLED_APP in rattlesnake/settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    :
    'app',
    :
]

5. Create the model to define the table structure of database and save the collection into database app/models.py

from django.db import models
from django.urls import reverse

# Create your models here.
class Student(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=200, null=False)
    identityNumber = models.CharField(max_length=200, null=False)
    address = models.CharField(max_length=200, null=True)
    department = models.CharField(max_length=200, null=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name
    
    # The absolute path to get the url then reverse into 'student_edit' with keyword arguments (kwargs) primary key
    def get_absolute_url(self):
        return reverse('student_edit', kwargs={'pk': self.pk})

6. Every after change models.py you need to make migrations into db.sqlite3 (database) to create the table for the new model

manage.py makemigrations
manage.py migrate

7. Create the views to create app pages on browser, the file is app/views.py according the above structure

from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.shortcuts import render
from django.views.generic import ListView, DetailView
from django.views.generic.edit import CreateView, UpdateView, DeleteView
from django.urls import reverse_lazy

from .models import Student

# Create your views here.

class StudentList(ListView):
    model = Student

class StudentDetail(DetailView):
    model = Student

class StudentCreate(CreateView):
    model = Student
    # Field must be same as the model attribute
    fields = ['name', 'identityNumber', 'address', 'department']
    success_url = reverse_lazy('student_list')

class StudentUpdate(UpdateView):
    model = Student
    # Field must be same as the model attribute
    fields = ['name', 'identityNumber', 'address', 'department']
    success_url = reverse_lazy('student_list')

class StudentDelete(DeleteView):
    model = Student
    success_url = reverse_lazy('student_list')

8. Then, create file app/urls.py to define app url path (in CI as same as route function)

from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.StudentList.as_view(), name='student_list'),
    path('view/<int:pk>', views.StudentDetail.as_view(), name='student_detail'),
    path('new', views.StudentCreate.as_view(), name='student_new'),
    path('edit/<int:pk>', views.StudentUpdate.as_view(), name='student_edit'),
    path('delete/<int:pk>', views.StudentDelete.as_view(), name='student_delete'),
]

9. The app/urls.py would not work unless you include that into the main url rattlesnake/urls.py

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

urlpatterns = [
    :
    path('student/', include('app.urls')),
    :
]

10. Create the html file to display user interface, you need create directory app/templates/app/ like below

* django-crud-sqlite/
  |--- rattlesnake/
  |    |--- app/
  |    |    |--- migrations/
  |    |    |--- templates/
  |    |    |    |--- app/
  |    |    |--- __init__.py
  |    |    |--- admin.py
  |    |    |--- apps.py
  |    |    |--- models.py
  |    |    |--- tests.py
  |    |    |--- views.py
  |    |--- rattlesnake/
  |    |    |--- __init__.py
  |    |    |--- settings.py
  |    |    |--- urls.py
  |    |    |--- wsgi.py
  |    |--- manage.py
  |--- venv/

11. Create file app/templates/app/student_list.html to display or parsing student list data with ListView library

<h1>Student List</h1>
<a href="{% url 'student_new' %}">Create New Student</a><br><br>
<table border="1">
    <tr>
        <th>Name</th>
        <th>Identity Number</th>
        <th>Action</th>
    </tr>
    {% for student in object_list %}
    <tr>
        <td>{{ student.name }}</td>
        <td>{{ student.identityNumber }}</td>
        <td>
            <a href="{% url 'student_detail' student.id %}">Detail</a>
            <a href="{% url 'student_edit' student.id %}">Edit</a>
            <a href="{% url 'student_delete' student.id %}">Delete</a>
        </td>
    </tr>
    {% empty %}
    <tr><td colspan="3"><b>Data is empty! Please, add data first.</b></td></tr>
    {% endfor %}
</table>

12. Create file app/templates/app/student_detail.html to display or parsing data of each student and will used by DetailView library

<h1>Student Detail</h1>
<h3>Name : {{ object.name }}</h3>
<h3>Identity Number : {{ object.identityNumber }}</h3>
<h3>Address : {{ object.address }}</h3>
<h3>Department : {{ object.department }}</h3>

13. Create file app/templates/app/student_form.html to display form input and edit views

<h1>Student Form</h1>
<form method="POST">{% csrf_token %}
    <table>
        <tr>
            <td>Name</td>
            <td>:</td>
            <td>{{ form.name }}</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Identity Number</td>
            <td>:</td>
            <td>{{ form.identityNumber }}</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Department</td>
            <td>:</td>
            <td>{{ form.department }}</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Address</td>
            <td>:</td>
            <td>{{ form.address }}</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td><input type="submit" value="Save"></td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</form>

14. Create file app/templates/app/student_confirm_delete.html to display promt or alert confirmation to delete the object view

<form method="post">{% csrf_token %}
    Are you sure you want to delete "{{ object }}" ?
    <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

15. Test the project

manage.py runserver

* django-crud-sqlite/
  |--- rattlesnake/
  |    |--- app/
  |    |    |--- migrations/
  |    |    |--- templates/
  |    |    |    |--- app/
  |    |    |    |    |--- student_confirm_delete.html
  |    |    |    |    |--- student_detail.html
  |    |    |    |    |--- student_form.html
  |    |    |    |    |--- student_list.html
  |    |    |--- __init__.py
  |    |    |--- admin.py
  |    |    |--- apps.py
  |    |    |--- models.py
  |    |    |--- tests.py
  |    |    |--- urls.py
  |    |    |--- views.py
  |    |--- rattlesnake/
  |    |    |--- __init__.py
  |    |    |--- settings.py
  |    |    |--- urls.py
  |    |    |--- wsgi.py
  |    |--- db.sqlite3
  |    |--- manage.py
  |--- venv/

1. List student page but if list is empty will display Data is empty! Please add data first.

2. Form input student page, url path student/new

3. List student page if data inserted

4. Student detail page, url path student/view/<parameters:id>

5. Form edit student page, url path `student/edit/parameter:id

6. Confirmation page if data will remove from collection, url path student/delete/<parameter:id>

• Python 3 - The language programming used
• Django 2 - The web framework used
• Virtualenv - The virtual environment used
• SQLite 3 - The database library

You can clone or download this project

> Clone : git clone https://github.com/piinalpin/django-crud-sqlite.git

• Alvinditya Saputra - Initial work - DSS Consulting - LinkedIn Instagram Twitter