git

Until now we have used the SQLite database for all of our tutorials. Lets see how to configure a different database in our django projects.

Pre-requisite – Postgres database installed on your machine.

Git reference project – https://github.com/letsblogcontent/Python/tree/master/django_postgres

Step 1 – If not already installed, install django

pip install django

Step 2 – Create a new django project “django-postgres”

django-admin startproject django-postgres

Step 3 – Navigate to project directory “django-postgres” to Install django restframework

cd django-postgres

pip install djangorestframework

Step 4 – Install psycopg2 – Adapter for postgres

pip install psycopg2

Step 5 – now lets create a new app

python manage.py startapp models

Step 6 – Add the app to the installed apps of your project in the file settings.py. You will find it under “<root directory>/django-postgres”

'models.apps.ModelsConfig'

Step 7 – Update the databases section in the settings.py file of the project to have postgres database details. Name represents database name and other parameters are self explanatory. Update all the details.


DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': 'Test2',
        'USER': 'user1',
        'PASSWORD': 'user1',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

Step 8 – Lets create a model in the models app so that we can test the database configuration. In the models app directory update below files. Create files where they are not already present.

<root_dir>/django_postgres/models/models.py

from django.db import models


class Company(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    address = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    email = models.CharField(max_length=50)

Here we have create a simple model class named Company

Create a new file serializers.py file in the models app
<root_dir>/django_postgres/models/serializers.py

from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import  Company


class CompanySerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Company
        fields = ['id', 'name', 'address', 'email']

in the views.py file of models app, add following content. Here we are using viewsets to configure our views for company

<root_dir>/django_postgres/models/views.py


from rest_framework import generics, viewsets
from .models import Company
from .serializers import CompanySerializer


class CompanyViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = Company.objects.all()
    serializer_class = CompanySerializer

Create/Update urls.py file to create url mapping of company views

<root_dir>/django_postgres/models/urls.py

from django.urls import path, include
from . import views
from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter

router = DefaultRouter()
router.register('company', views.CompanyViewSet)

urlpatterns = [
    path('', include(router.urls))
]

update the urls.py file of the project django_postgres. Add a new entry as below in the urlpatterns section

 path('api/', include('models.urls')),

Step 9 – We are pretty much done and now is the time to test our project. I have updated the project in the git url mentioned at the start of the page. If something is not working, please do write in comments or try and download the project and execute.

Execute “makemigrations” and “migrate” command as below

python manage.py makemigrations

python manage.py migrate

Now run the server with below command

python manage.py runserver

Step 10 – Now on your browser execute http://localhost:8000/api/company

Now try and add some new elements and see the results. You can also go to postgres database and you should find models_company table created with the entries you have created.