crash course in managing a database with django-admin

gistfile1.txt

# See also:
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/intro/tutorial01/

# Install Django
python -m pip install django


# This creates a blank new Django project in mysite/
django-admin startproject mysite
cd mysite/


# Create a new app within your project. An app is just a way to separate
# different bits of functionality of your project. You can use one monolithic app
# for now.
python manage.py startapp garage


# By the way, that `manage.py` script is your CLI for managing your Django
# project. It has a bunch of useful features.


# Before we look at the garage app, we have to tell the overall Django project
# to use it. This is how you install any functionality, whether it's your own
# code or some module you found online.
nano mysite/settings.py

# Find INSTALLED_APPS and add 'garage' to the list. Save, close.


# Ok, now we can add a model. A model is a Python class where we define the
# fields and Django automatically does all the database stuff for us.
#
# There are a ton of different built-in field types. Good ones to understand
# are ForeignKey, OneToOneField, and ManyToManyField, since those let you define
# relationships.
#
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.1/ref/models/fields/

# Edit garage/models.py and add:

class Car(models.Model):
  make = models.CharField(max_length=128)
  model = models.CharField(max_length=128)
  plate = models.CharField(max_length=32)


# Now we'll hook this up to django-admin so that we get a web UI for managing
# the cars in our garage for essentially free. You can do a lot of customization
# of this, but we'll start simple.

# Edit garage/admin.py and add:

from .models import Car
admin.site.register(Car)


# Ok, that's all for the code. Now we need to tell Django our database model
# has changed. This automatically generates scripts that migrate a database from
# one version of the schema to the next.
python manage.py makemigrations garage


# That step created the migration scripts, but didn't run them. To run them
# locally and create a temporary database, it's just
python manage.py migrate


# Ok, last thing is we need an admin user we can log in with. This will prompt
# you for the username and password and insert the user record into the DB.
python manage.py createsuperuser


# Spin it up
python manage.py runserver


# Ok, now visit the admin site in your browser.
open http://localhost:8000/admin/