Request object for Form Data

  • request.method: Returns the request method (GET, POST, etc.).
def my_view(request):
    if request.method == 'GET':
        return HttpResponse('This is a GET request')
    elif request.method == 'POST':
        return HttpResponse('This is a POST request')
  • request.GET: A dictionary-like object containing all the GET parameters.
def my_view(request):
    name = request.GET.get('name', '')
    return HttpResponse(f'Hello, {name}')
  • request.POST: A dictionary-like object containing all the POST parameters.
def my_view(request):
    name = request.POST.get('name', '')
    return HttpResponse(f'Hello, {name}')
  • request.PUT: A dictionary-like object containing all the PUT parameters.
def my_view(request):
    name = request.PUT.get('name', '')
    return HttpResponse(f'Hello, {name}')
  • request.META: A dictionary containing all the HTTP headers.
def my_view(request):
    user_agent = request.META.get('HTTP_USER_AGENT', '')
    http_referer = request.META.get('HTTP_REFERER', '')
    http_host = request.META.get('HTTP_HOST', '')
    return HttpResponse(f'User Agent: {user_agent}')
  • request.FILES: A dictionary-like object containing all the uploaded files.

Handeling File Uploads By User

The file uploaded by user are called Media files in Django. Django provides a FileField and ImageField to handle file uploads. The FileField and ImageField are used to upload files and images respectively.

Setting Up Media Files

To handle media files in Django, you need to set up the MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT in the settings.py file.

  • MEDIA_URL: The URL that handles the media files.
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
  • MEDIA_ROOT: The directory where the media files are stored.
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')

Note: All the media file is stored in the MEDIA_ROOT directory and they are served using the MEDIA_URL.

Serving Media Files

By default media file is not served like static files.To serve media files during development, you need to add the following code to the urls.py file.

from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static

urlpatterns = [
    # Your URL patterns
]

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

let us consider a file structure like this:

project
│
├── media
|    |── file.jpg
|    |── file2.jpg
|
├── myapp
|    |── models.py
|    |── views.py
|

Then wehn user visit to http://localhost:8000/media/ then the folder media will be resolved. similarly if user visit to http://localhost:8000/media/file.jpg then the file file.jpg will be resolved.

FileField or ImageField

  • FileField: It is used to upload files.
from django.db import models
class Document(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    file = models.FileField(upload_to='documents/')
  • ImageField: It is used to upload images.
from django.db import models
class Image(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    image = models.ImageField(upload_to='images/')

when we save the file using FileField then the file will be saved in the MEDIA_ROOT folder and its url will contain the MEDIA_URL in the database followed by the file name.

Example of File Upload

models.py

from django.db import models
class Document(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    file = models.FileField(upload_to='documents/')

settings.py

MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')

urls.py

from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static

urlpatterns = [
    # Your URL patterns
]

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

views.py

from django.shortcuts import render
from .models import Document

def upload_file(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        name = request.POST.get('name', '')
        file = request.FILES.get('file', None)
        if file:
            document = Document(name=name, file=file)
            document.save()
            return HttpResponse('File uploaded successfully')
    return render(request, 'upload_file.html')

To find the url of the file

document = Document.objects.get(id=1)
url = document.file.url  # /media/documents/file.jpg