Django Forms Example - Generating Forms with Django Form Class

In this Django Forms Example we will see how to use Django Form class to generate Web Forms. A form is very basic need of any web application. And generating forms in Django using the Form class is very easy. And thats it what we will be learning in this Django Forms Example.

If you are an absolute beginner in Python Django you should start reading from the first post. You can go to the first post from the link given below.

Python Django Tutorial for Beginners

This time we will use Sublime Text Editor, as I got request that many of you don’t have PyCharm IDE, as it is a paid tool. And I got a MAC as well so I will be crating the project from Scratch using terminal. You can use the same with power shell as we did in the very first Django Tutorial. So lets start this Django Forms Example.

Starting a New Django Project

First create a new directory, I am creating a directory in my desktop.

Now open terminal and navigate to this folder.
Now run the following command to create a virtual environment.


$ virtualenv .

$ virtualenv .

It will create a virtual environment in the current directory. Now we need to activate it. So run the following command.


$ source bin/activate

$ source bin/activate

Now install Django Framework using the following command.


$ pip install django

$ pip install django

Now lets create a new Django Project using the following command.


$ django-admin.py startproject DjangoFormExample

$ django-admin.py startproject DjangoFormExample

In the above command DjangoFormExample is our project name you can change it to whatever you want.
Now navigate to your project directory.


$ cd DjangoFormExample

$ cd DjangoFormExample

Now try running your project using the following command.


$ python manage.py runserver

$ python manage.py runserver

If you are getting the following message on terminal then its fine. If not recheck the process 😛

You can go to the given IP to test your project.
Now open the Project Folder to your Editor, I am using Sublime as it is really cool.

Starting a New Application

We have the project running now we will create a new app inside our project. To create a new app write the following command in terminal.


$ python manage.py startapp newsletter

$ python manage.py startapp newsletter

After running this command you will get a new folder created inside your project named newsletter.
Now inside this newsletter folder create a new folder named templates. We will store our html files inside this folder.

Creating Form

Inside newsletter folder create a new file named forms.py. Inside this file we will create our Form.


#importing forms
from django import forms 

#creating our forms
class SignupForm(forms.Form):
	#django gives a number of predefined fields
	#CharField and EmailField are only two of them
	#go through the official docs for more field details
	name = forms.CharField(label='Enter your name', max_length=100)
	email = forms.EmailField(label='Enter your email', max_length=100)

#importing forms

from django import forms

#creating our forms

class SignupForm(forms.Form):

#django gives a number of predefined fields

#CharField and EmailField are only two of them

#go through the official docs for more field details

name = forms.CharField(label='Enter your name', max_length=100)

email = forms.EmailField(label='Enter your email', max_length=100)

Currently we are using CharField and EmailField. Go to this link to know about the available form fields in Django.

Creating View

Come inside views.py to create a new view for our form.


from django.shortcuts import render

# Create your views here.

def signupform(request):
	#if form is submitted
	if request.method == 'POST':
		#will handle the request later

	else:
		#creating a new form
		form = SignupForm()

	#returning form 
	return render(request, 'signupform.html', {'form':form});

from django.shortcuts import render

# Create your views here.

def signupform(request):

#if form is submitted

if request.method == 'POST':

#will handle the request later

else:

#creating a new form

form = SignupForm()

#returning form

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

Defining URL Pattern for Form

Now we need a path to show up our form in browser. So come inside urls.py file and modify it as follows.


from django.conf.urls import url
from django.contrib import admin

#importing views from newsletter app 
from newsletter import views as newsletter_views

urlpatterns = [
	#defining url for form
	url(r'^signup/', newsletter_views.signupform),
	
    url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
]

from django.conf.urls import url

from django.contrib import admin

#importing views from newsletter app

from newsletter import views as newsletter_views

urlpatterns = [

#defining url for form

url(r'^signup/', newsletter_views.signupform),

url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),

]

Creating Template

Now we need an html file named signupform.html, as it is the file we are rendering from our view. Create this file inside the templates folder we created.


<form action="/signup/" method="post">
    {% csrf_token %}
    {{ form }}
    <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

{% csrf_token %}

</form>

What we did?

If you remember the last Django Forms Tutorial, in that post we disabled the csrf protection. But we should not do this, so this time I am using the csrf protection system of Django.
Then we are rendering the form from the view.

Adding App in Settings

Finally we need to add the app in settings.py of the main project folder.


INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'newsletter'
]

INSTALLED_APPS = [

'django.contrib.admin',

'django.contrib.auth',

'django.contrib.contenttypes',

'django.contrib.sessions',

'django.contrib.messages',

'django.contrib.staticfiles',

'newsletter'

]

As you can see we added our newsletter app at the bottom.

Running the App

Now lets try running the app make sure your development server is running. If not you can use the following command to run your development server.


$ python manage.py runserver

$ python manage.py runserver

Now go to the url http://127.0.0.1:8000/signup/ to see your form

If you will submit the form it will not work as we have not handled the for submission yet.

Handling Form Submission

Again come inside views.py and modify the code as below.


from django.shortcuts import render

from .forms import SignupForm
# Create your views here.

def signupform(request):
	#if form is submitted
	if request.method == 'POST':
		#will handle the request later
		form = SignupForm(request.POST)

		#checking the form is valid or not 
		if form.is_valid():
			#if valid rendering new view with values
			#the form values contains in cleaned_data dictionary
			return render(request, 'result.html', {
					'name': form.cleaned_data['name'],
					'email': form.cleaned_data['email'],
				})

	else:
		#creating a new form
		form = SignupForm()

	#returning form 
	return render(request, 'signupform.html', {'form':form});

from django.shortcuts import render

from .forms import SignupForm

# Create your views here.

def signupform(request):

#if form is submitted

if request.method == 'POST':

#will handle the request later

form = SignupForm(request.POST)

#checking the form is valid or not

if form.is_valid():

#if valid rendering new view with values

#the form values contains in cleaned_data dictionary

return render(request, 'result.html', {

'name': form.cleaned_data['name'],

'email': form.cleaned_data['email'],

})

else:

#creating a new form

form = SignupForm()

#returning form

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

To complete this we need one more file named result.html inside our templates folder.


<h4>Thanks for Signing Up</h4>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
	Name
</td>
<td>
 	{{ name }}
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
	Email
</td>
<td>
	{{ email }}
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<h4>Thanks for Signing Up</h4>

<table>

<tr>

<td>

Name

</td>

<td>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

</td>

<td>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

Now try submitting the form.

Bingo! Its working absolutely fine. If you are still facing troubles you can get my source code from below link.

Django Forms Example Source Code (1937 downloads)

So thats all for this Django Forms Example. And in the next post we will learn how to insert the form data to database in Django. Thank you 🙂

4 thoughts on “Django Forms Example – Generating Forms with Django Form Class”

M Kiran Kumar Reddy

July 23, 2017 at 4:05 am

iam waiting for next post.
how to insert the form data to database in Django.
Theresa

August 8, 2017 at 2:16 pm

I hope you can continue this series 🙂 It was really easy to follow!
Pooja

August 18, 2017 at 4:27 am

i am waiting for next post.
Munisekkhara Reddy

December 29, 2017 at 9:50 am

iam waiting for next post.
how to insert the form data to database in Django. Your posts are very very helpful, please continue

Starting a New Django Project

Starting a New Application

Creating Form

Creating View

Defining URL Pattern for Form

Creating Template

Adding App in Settings

Running the App

Handling Form Submission

4 thoughts on “Django Forms Example – Generating Forms with Django Form Class”

Leave a Comment Cancel reply