Add the slug field inside Django Model

What is SlugField in Django?

It is a way of generating a valid URL, generally using data already obtained. For instance, using the title of an article to generate a URL. Let’s assume our blog have a post with the title ‘The Django book by Geeksforgeeks’ with primary key id= 2. We might refer to this post with 

www.geeksforgeeks.org/posts/2. 

Or, we can reference the title like

 www.geeksforgeeks.org/posts/The Django book by Geeksforgeeks. 

But the problem is spaces are not valid in URLs, they need to be replaced by %20 which is ugly, making it the following 

www.geeksforgeeks.org/posts/The%20Django%20book%20by%20geeksforgeeks 

But it is not solving meaningful URL. Another option can be

 www.geeksforgeeks.org/posts/the-django-book-by-geeksforgeeks

So, the slug is now the-django-book-by-geeksforgeeks. All letters are down cased and spaces are replaced by hyphens -. 

Assume that our Blog Post models look similar to this. 

Python3

STATUS_CHOICES = (
   ('draft', 'Draft'),
   ('published', 'Published'),
)

class Post(models.Model):
   title = models.CharField(max_length = 250)
   slug = models.SlugField(max_length = 250, null = True, blank = True)
   text = models.TextField()
   published_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add = True)
   updated = models.DateTimeField(auto_now = True)

   status = models.CharField(max_length = 10, choices = STATUS_CHOICES,
                                                      default ='draft')


   class Meta:
       ordering = ('-published_at', )

   def __str__(self):
       return self.title

Adding Slugify to our project: 

Now we need to find a way to convert the title into a slug automatically. We want this script to be triggered every time a new instance of Post model is created. For this purpose, we will use signals. 

Note: Add new file util.py in the same directory where settings.py file is saved. 

Python3

import string, random
from django.db.models.signals import pre_save
from django.dispatch import receiver
from django.utils.text import slugify

def random_string_generator(size = 10, chars = string.ascii_lowercase + string.digits):
    return ''.join(random.choice(chars) for _ in range(size))

def unique_slug_generator(instance, new_slug = None):
    if new_slug is not None:
        slug = new_slug
    else:
        slug = slugify(instance.title)
    Klass = instance.__class__
    max_length = Klass._meta.get_field('slug').max_length
    slug = slug[:max_length]
    qs_exists = Klass.objects.filter(slug = slug).exists()

    if qs_exists:
        new_slug = "{slug}-{randstr}".format(
            slug = slug[:max_length-5], randstr = random_string_generator(size = 4))

        return unique_slug_generator(instance, new_slug = new_slug)
    return slug

Signals in Django: 

In many cases when there is a modification in a model’s instance we need to execute some action. Django provides us with an elegant way to handle these situations. The signals are utilities that allow associating events with actions. We can develop a function that will run when a signal calls it. 
In models.py file of posts app where Post Model was defined, add this in the same file: 

Python3

@receiver(pre_save, sender=Post)
def pre_save_receiver(sender, instance, *args, **kwargs):
   if not instance.slug:
       instance.slug = unique_slug_generator(instance)

The pre_save_receiver function should be placed separately outside the Post model.

Note: In urls.py edit detail path with path(‘posts/’, detail). In views.py edit the detail function with 

Python3

def detail(request, slug):
    q = Post.objects.filter(slug__iexact = slug)
   if q.exists():
       q = q.first()
   else:
       return HttpResponse('<h1>Post Not Found</h1>')
   context = {

       'post': q
   }
   return render(request, 'posts/details.html', context)

The last step is to add the link in HTML file <a href=”/posts/{{ a.slug }}” class=”btn btn-primary”>View</a>. Now we are ready to go to 127.0.0.1:8000/posts/title-you-have-added and it will show you the page details.html.