Django Forms

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Django Forms
Learn how to manage forms in Django - a comprehensive introduction for beginners
This page explains how to manage and validate a form in Django Framework. We assume the audience has already a Django project up and running. For those that start from nothing, feel free to access the resources mentioned below and come back here once the content is understood:
​How to install Django - simple, tested steps to install Django
​Django for beginners - a comprehensive tutorial that covers the basics
Topics covered by this tutorial
Create a new Django app
Define a new route 
Update the configuration to include the new application
Code a simple form
Visualize the form using Django shell
Integrate the Form into a real page
Update the controller to check the form is validated
Create a new Application
For this, we will use the startapp Django subcommand:
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$ python manage.py startapp forms
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Add a simple view in forms - forms/views.py
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# File contents: forms/views.py
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​
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from django.shortcuts import render
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​
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from django.http import HttpResponse 
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​
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def index(request):                                  
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    return HttpResponse("Hello Django - Forms")
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Define the routing for our new app - forms/urls.py  
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from django.urls import path, re_path
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from forms import views
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​
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urlpatterns = [
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​
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    # The home page
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    path('forms/', views.index, name='home'),
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]
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Update settings to include the new app - config/settings.py
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# File: config/settings.py (partial content)
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...
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INSTALLED_APPS = [
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    'django.contrib.admin',
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    'django.contrib.auth',
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    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
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    'django.contrib.sessions',
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    'django.contrib.messages',
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    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
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    'forms'                           # <-- NEW
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]
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...
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Update routing - config/urls.py
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from django.contrib import admin
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from django.urls import path, include  # <-- UPDATED to add 'include'    
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​
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urlpatterns = [
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    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
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    path(""      , include("forms.urls")), # Forms app routing
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]
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Once we restart the project, the new route /forms should be visible:
Django Forms -  A Hello-World type route
Define a new form
Inside the newly created app, we need to create a forms file and define the new Form Class object.
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# File contents: forms/forms.py
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​
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from django import forms 
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class HelloForm(forms.Form): 
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​
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    title   = forms.CharField() 
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    message = forms.CharField() 
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    email   = forms.EmailField(required=False) 
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After the file is saved, we can play with it using Django CLI.
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$ python .\manage.py shell
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>>> 
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>>> from forms.forms import HelloForm
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>>> 
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>>> my_form = HelloForm()
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>>> 
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>>> print( my_form.as_ul() )
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<li><label for="id_title">Title:</label> <input type="text" name="title" required id="id_title"></li>
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<li><label for="id_message">Message:</label> <input type="text" name="message" required id="id_message"></li>
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<li><label for="id_email">Email:</label> <input type="email" name="email" id="id_email"></li>
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Using the CLI we can visualize how the form will be expended and presented to the users. Another helper provided by Django is form.as_p() - the paragraph view of a form.
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>>> 
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>>> print( my_form.as_p() )  
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<p><label for="id_title">Title:</label> <input type="text" name="title" required id="id_title"></p>
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<p><label for="id_message">Message:</label> <input type="text" name="message" required id="id_message"></p>
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<p><label for="id_email">Email:</label> <input type="email" name="email" id="id_email"></p>
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>>> 
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The next step is to add the necessary code to display the form on a page and manage the information submitted by users in a controller. 
Controller code - forms/forms.py  - index method
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from .forms      import HelloForm
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​
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def index(request):                                  
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​
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    if request.method == 'POST': 
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        form = HelloForm(request.POST) 
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        if form.is_valid(): 
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            return HttpResponse("Form is valid")
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    else: 
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        form = HelloForm() 
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​
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    return render(request, 'hello.html', {'form': form}) 
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HTML page - defined in forms/templates forlder
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<!-- Forms/templates/hellp.html: partial content -->
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​
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    <form action="" method="post"> 
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        <table> 
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            {{ form.as_table }} 
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        </table> 
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        {% csrf_token %} 
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        <br />
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        <input type="submit" value="Submit"> 
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    </form> 
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Django Forms - Completed with user Data
If all fields are provided, on submit, we should see the Form is valid message.  
Update the form with a new field ID (numeric type):
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from django import forms 
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class HelloForm(forms.Form): 
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​
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    title   = forms.CharField()
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    message = forms.CharField() 
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    id      = forms.IntegerField()              # <-- NEW form field  
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    email   = forms.EmailField(required=False) 
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The page server to the users is updated automaticaly to include the new field
Django Forms - Integer Field Added
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Thanks for reading! For more topics, feel free to contact Appseed. 
​
Resources 
Read more about Django (official docs)
Start fast a new project using development-ready Django Starters 
Django Request Object
Django Auth System
Last modified 3mo ago
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Contents
Create a new Application
Define a new form
Resources