How to upload a file in Django

Question

As a newbie to Django, I am having difficulty making an upload app in Django . May someone post a minimal but complete (Model, View, Template) example code to do so?

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

A minimal Django file upload example

1. Create a django project

Run startproject::

$ django-admin.py startproject sample

now a folder(sample) is created.

2. create an app

$ cd sample
$ python manage.py startapp uploader

Now a folder(uploader) with these files are created::

uploader/
  __init__.py
  admin.py
  app.py
  models.py
  tests.py
  views.py
  migrations/
    __init__.py

3. Update settings.py

On sample/settings.py add 'uploader' to INSTALLED_APPS and add MEDIA_ROOT and MEDIA_URL, ie::

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'uploader',
    ...<other apps>...      
]

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

4. Update urls.py

in sample/urls.py add::

...<other imports>...
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static
from uploader import views as uploader_views

urlpatterns = [
    ...<other url patterns>...
    path('', uploader_views.UploadView.as_view(), name='fileupload'),
]+ static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

5. Update models.py

update uploader/models.py::

from django.db import models
class Upload(models.Model):
    upload_file = models.FileField()    
    upload_date = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add =True)

6. Update views.py

update uploader/views.py::

from django.views.generic.edit import CreateView
from django.urls import reverse_lazy
from .models import Upload
class UploadView(CreateView):
    model = Upload
    fields = ['upload_file', ]
    success_url = reverse_lazy('fileupload')
    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        context = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)
        context['documents'] = Upload.objects.all()
        return context

7. create templates

Create a folder sample/uploader/templates/uploader

Create a file upload_form.html ie sample/uploader/templates/uploader/upload_form.html::

<div style="padding:40px;margin:40px;border:1px solid #ccc">
    <h1>Django File Upload</h1>
    <form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
      {% csrf_token %}
      {{ form.as_p }}
      <button type="submit">Submit</button>
    </form><hr>
    <ul>
    {% for document in documents %}
        <li>
            <a href="{{ document.upload_file.url }}">{{ document.upload_file.name }}</a>
            <small>({{ document.upload_file.size|filesizeformat }}) - {{document.upload_date}}</small>
        </li>
    {% endfor %}
    </ul>
</div>

8. Syncronize database

Syncronize database and runserver::

$ python manage.py makemigrations
$ python manage.py migrate
$ python manage.py runserver

visit http://localhost:8000/

Hope it helps!!

Thank You!!