Introduction To Forms | Forms

What are Forms?

Forms are a way of collecting user input in a web application. They allow users to submit data to the server, such as filling out a registration form, creating a blog post, or updating their profile information. In Django, forms are easy to create and handle, which makes it a powerful framework for web development.

Creating a Simple Form

To create a form in Django, you typically start by defining a form class. Here's a basic example:


                    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')

Rendering the Form in a Template

Once you've created a form class, you can render it in a template. Here's how you can do it:


                    <form method="post">

                        {% csrf_token %}

                        {{ form.as_p }}

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

                    </form>

Handling Form Submission

When a form is submitted, you need to handle the data in your view. Here's an example of how you can do this:


                    from django.shortcuts import render

                    from .forms import ContactForm


                    def contact(request):

                        if request.method == 'POST':

                            form = ContactForm(request.POST)

                            if form.is_valid():

                                # Process the data in form.cleaned_data

                                return HttpResponseRedirect('/thanks/')

                        else:

                            form = ContactForm()


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

Form Validation

Form validation is a crucial part of handling user input. Django provides several ways to validate forms:

Built-in validators such as forms.EmailField() which ensures the input is a valid email.
Custom validation methods within the form class.

Here's an example of custom validation:


                    class ContactForm(forms.Form):

                        name = forms.CharField(max_length=100)

                        email = forms.EmailField()

                        message = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea)


                        def clean_name(self):

                            name = self.cleaned_data.get('name')

                            if "badword" in name:

                                raise forms.ValidationError("Bad word detected!")

                            return name

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we've covered the basics of creating and handling forms in Django. We discussed how to create a simple form, render it in a template, handle form submissions, and validate form data. Forms are an essential part of web development, and Django provides powerful tools to make form handling straightforward and efficient.