Django REST Framework makes it easy to quickly build REST APIs for Django models. The ModelSerializer class provides a convenient way to serialize Django models to and from JSON. Often, you may need to add extra fields to the serialized representation that are not part of the model itself. In this post, we’ll explore a … Read more
Getting started with Django web development typically involves running the development server on localhost to preview your site. However, there may be times when you need to access your local development site from another device on the same network. Fortunately, with a few configuration tweaks, you can externally access your Django site hosted locally. Enabling … Read more
When building a Django application, one important but often overlooked setting is configuring the correct timezone. Setting the right timezone ensures dates and times are displayed accurately for users around the world. In this post, we’ll explore the various ways to set the timezone in Django. Why Timezones Matter First, let’s discuss why properly setting … Read more
Django’s powerful ORM allows developers to retrieve data from the database into Python objects called QuerySets. QuerySets have similarities to lists – they are iterable and can contain multiple objects. However, they have some key differences that make them not directly compatible with functions and operations meant for Python lists. Luckily, convertingQuerySets to lists is … Read more
When diving into the world of Django, developers often encounter the terms “projects” and “apps.” These concepts are fundamental to structuring a Django application, and understanding their differences is crucial for building robust and maintainable web projects. Let’s explore what projects and apps are, how they relate to each other, and best practices for using … Read more
Migrating database schema changes is crucial when developing Django applications over time. Often, you may realize you need to rename a model field to something more appropriate. However, renaming fields isn’t as straightforward as it may initially seem. In this post, we’ll explore how to properly rename fields with South. An Introduction to South South … Read more
When building APIs with Django Rest Framework (DRF), we often need to access details about the currently authenticated user in our serializers and views. DRF provides easy access to the current request in views, but accessing it in serializers requires a small tweak. In this post, we’ll explore a few ways to access the request.user … Read more
SQLAlchemy and Django are both popular Python libraries used for interacting with databases in applications. However, they take different approaches – SQLAlchemy is more focused on providing a SQL toolkit and abstraction layer, while Django includes an object-relational mapper (ORM) and full-featured web framework. This leads to differences in their feature sets. One such example … Read more
Django’s object-relational mapper (ORM) provides a powerful way to interact with databases in Python code. While the ORM makes common queries easy, getting a random record takes a little extra work. In this post, we’ll explore a few different approaches to selecting a random row from a Django model. First, let’s look at why retrieving … Read more
When building a Django application that requires storing users’ phone numbers, one decision developers need to make is how to best represent those phone numbers in the database. There are a few different approaches, each with their own pros and cons. In this post, we will compare the options and make a recommendation for the … Read more
