Handling Ajax request in Django
Introduction
This tutorial explains how to carry out an ajax request in the Django web framework. We will create a simple post-liking app as a part of the example.
Glossary
- Project Initialization
- Create models
- Create views
- Write URLs
- Carry out a request with Jquery Ajax.
- Register models to admin and add some posts.
Implementation:
1. Initiate the Django Project – Here I am assuming that you are done with Django Installation.
- To Create a Django Project execute:
$ django-admin startproject django_example
- After creating a project we need to create a Django app. To create an app say “post” execute the following:
$ cd django_example $ python manage.py startapp post
- Go to django_example/settings.py add the post-app
- Now you will have files something like this:
2. Create models: To create models, go to the post directory and open models.py.
- In models.py. First, create a post table. To create a post table you’ll need to write:
class Post(models.Model):
post_heading = models.CharField(max_length=200)
post_text = models.TextField()
def __unicode__(self): # If python2 use __str__ if python3
return unicode(self.post_heading)- Then In models.py, create like a table. To create like a table you’ll need to write:
class Like(models.Model):
post = models.ForeignKey(Post, on_delete = models.CASCADE)- Make Migration and migrate step:
$ python manage.py makemigrations $ python manage.py migrate
After completing these steps, we have our database tables ready to use.
3. Create Views:
To create views, we need to go to the post directory and open views.py
- First, import Previously created Models and HTTP response
from .models import Post, Like from django.http import HttpResponse
- Create an index view to render all the posts. Code sample:
def index(request):
posts = Post.objects.all() # Getting all the posts from database
return render(request, 'post/index.html', { 'posts': posts })- Create like posts view to like a post. This view will be called when we will hit a “like button”. Code sample:
def likePost(request):
if request.method == 'GET':
post_id = request.GET['post_id']
likedpost = Post.objects.get(pk=post_id) #getting the liked posts
m = Like(post=likedpost) # Creating Like Object
m.save() # saving it to store in database
return HttpResponse("Success!") # Sending an success response
else:
return HttpResponse("Request method is not a GET")Once our view gets created we will move to write a template and jQuery to perform an ajax request.
4. Create URLs:
To create URLs, open django_example/urls.py. Your django_example/urls.py should look something like this:
from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.contrib import admin
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
url(r'^', include('post.urls')), # To make post app available at /
]To create URLs, create file post/urls.py. Your post/urls.py should look something like this:
from django.conf.urls import url
from . import views
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^$', views.index, name='index'), # index view at /
url(r'^likepost/$', views.likePost, name='likepost'), # likepost view at /likepost
]5. Making templates and carrying out ajax requests:
- Create a file post/templates/post/index.html. Code sample:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Like Post App</title>
</head>
<body>
<p id="message"></p>
{% for post in posts %}
<h3>{{ forloop.counter }}) {{ post.post_heading }}</h3>
<p>{{ post.post_text }} </p>
<a class="likebutton" id="like{{post.id}}" href="#" data-catid="{{ post.id }}">Like</a>
{% endfor %}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.12.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$('.likebutton').click(function(){
var catid;
catid = $(this).attr("data-catid");
$.ajax(
{
type:"GET",
url: "/likepost",
data:{
post_id: catid
},
success: function( data )
{
$( '#like'+ catid ).remove();
$( '#message' ).text(data);
}
})
});
</script>
</body>
</html>
Basically, what we are doing here is - we are making an ajax get request -> /likepost?post_id=<id_of_liked_post>6. To Register models to admin and add some posts:
- Open post/admin.py.
- Import Models to admin.py.
from .models import Post, Like
- Register your models:
admin.site.register(Post) admin.site.register(Like)
Now add some posts using the Django default admin portal. Visit http://localhost:8000/ to view and like posts. I also have added this sample app to my github which you may use for reference.
This blog is written by Anshul Singhal.
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