The structure of a Django project adheres to a specific framework designed to facilitate efficient development, simplicity in design, and reusable components. Django is a Python-based web framework that follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern, although in Django’s particular interpretation it is referred to as the Model-View-Template (MVT) pattern.
According to Django’s official documentation, a Django project is composed of a collection of configurations and apps. When you start a new Django project using the ‘django-admin startproject’ command, Django creates a default project structure. The created directory (named after your project) would have the following structure:
```
myproject/
manage.py
myproject/
init.py
settings.py
urls.py
asgi.py
wsgi.py
```
Let’s briefly discuss these components:
- `manage.py` is a command-line utility used for administrative tasks, such as database administration, running the development server, etc.
- `myproject/` is the Python package for your project. It’s standard Python practice to include an `__init__.py` file in your project directory to ensure the directory is recognized as a Python module.
- `settings.py` includes all the configuration of your Django installation. This is where you’d include the settings for database connection, static and media files, security keys, application configuration, etc.
- `urls.py` is responsible for routing web requests based on the URL. This file tells the Django project how to connect the requested URL with a specified Python function.
- `asgi.py` and `wsgi.py` serve as entry points for ASGI-compatible and WSGI-compatible web servers to serve your project, respectively.
When you start adding applications to your project using the `python manage.py startapp` command, another directory structure is created for the application:
```
myapp/
init.py
admin.py
apps.py
migrations/
init.py
models.py
tests.py
views.py
```
Each application you write in Django consists of a Python package that follows this structure. The models.py, views.py, and admin.py files are the most common files you will work with.
- models.py defines the structure of the databases used.
- views.py processes incoming requests and provides responses.
- admin.py defines the layout of the admin interface.
Django’s distinctive characteristic is its encouragement of reusable apps, which can be plugged into any Django project.
This information is based on the Django Project’s Official documentation (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/intro/tutorial01/), which is a leading authority on the workings and structure of Django projects.
