Form Handling | Forms | Django Tutorial

Introduction

Form handling is a critical aspect of web development, allowing users to interact with your website by submitting data. In Django, form handling is straightforward and powerful, leveraging Django's built-in form classes and validation methods. This tutorial will guide you through the process of creating and handling forms in Django.

Setting Up

Before diving into form handling, ensure you have Django installed and a Django project set up. If you don't have Django installed, you can install it using the following command:

pip install django

Once installed, create a new Django project and navigate to the project directory:

django-admin startproject myproject
cd myproject

Creating a Django App

Next, create a new Django app within your project. This app will contain the form handling logic:

python manage.py startapp myapp

Remember to add your new app to the INSTALLED_APPS list in settings.py:


                INSTALLED_APPS = [

                    'django.contrib.admin',

                    'django.contrib.auth',

                    'django.contrib.contenttypes',

                    'django.contrib.sessions',

                    'django.contrib.messages',

                    'django.contrib.staticfiles',

                    'myapp',

                ]

Creating a Form

Create a new file in your app directory called forms.py. This file will contain the form class:


                from django import forms


                class ContactForm(forms.Form):

                    name = forms.CharField(label='Your name', max_length=100)

                    email = forms.EmailField(label='Your email')

                    message = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea, label='Your message')

Creating a View

Next, create a view in views.py that will handle the form submission:


                from django.shortcuts import render

                from .forms import ContactForm


                def contact_view(request):

                    if request.method == 'POST':

                        form = ContactForm(request.POST)

                        if form.is_valid():

                            # Process the data in form.cleaned_data

                            print(form.cleaned_data)

                            # Redirect or render a success template

                    else:

                        form = ContactForm()


                    return render(request, 'contact.html', {'form': form})

Creating a Template

Create a template file contact.html in your app's templates directory:


                <!DOCTYPE html>

                <html lang="en">

                <head>

                    <meta charset="UTF-8">

                    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

                    <title>Contact Form</title>

                </head>

                <body>

                    <h2>Contact Us</h2>

                    <form method="post">

                        {% csrf_token %}

                        {{ form.as_p }}

                        <button type="submit">Submit</button>

                    </form>

                </body>

                </html>

URL Configuration

Finally, map the view to a URL in your app's urls.py:


                from django.urls import path

                from .views import contact_view


                urlpatterns = [

                    path('contact/', contact_view, name='contact'),

                ]

Don't forget to include your app's URLs in the project's main urls.py:


                from django.contrib import admin

                from django.urls import path, include


                urlpatterns = [

                    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),

                    path('', include('myapp.urls')),

                ]

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered the basics of form handling in Django, including setting up a form, creating a view to handle the form submission, and rendering the form in a template. While this is a simple example, Django's form handling capabilities are extensive, allowing for more complex form processing, validation, and customization.

Form Handling in Django