Writing your first Django app

We’ll assume you haveDjango installed already. You can tell Django is installed and which version by running the following command in a shell prompt (indicated by the $ prefix):

$ 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”.

Creating a project

$ django-admin startproject mysite

This will create a mysite directory in your current directory

Let’s look at what startproject created:

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

These files are:

• The outer mysite/ root directory is a container for your project. Its name doesn’t matter to Django; you can rename it to anything you like.

• manage.py: A command-line utility that lets you interact with this Django project in various ways. You can read all the details about manage.py in django-admin and manage.py.

• The inner mysite/ directory 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).

• 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 more about packages in the official Python docs.

• mysite/settings.py: Settings/configuration for this Django project. Django settings will tell you all about how settings work.

• 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 URL dispatcher.

• mysite/asgi.py: An entry-point for ASGI-compatible web servers to serve your project. See How to deploy with ASGI for more details.

• mysite/wsgi.py: An entry-point for WSGI-compatible web servers to serve your project. See How to deploy with WSGI for more details.

The development server

Let’s verify your Django project works. Change into the outermysitedirectory, if you haven’t already, and run the following commands:

$ python manage.py runserver

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

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.

July 08, 2020 - 15:50:53
Django version 3.0, using settings 'mysite.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CONTROL-C.

You’ve started the Django development server, a lightweight Web server written purely in Python.

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!