A Django model is a Python class that represents a database table. Models make it easy to define and work with database tables using simple Python code. Instead of writing complex SQL queries, we use Django’s built-in ORM (Object Relational Mapper), which allows us to interact with the database in a more readable and organized way.
Key benefits of using Django models:
- Simplifies database operations like creating, updating, and deleting.
- Automatically generates SQL queries.
- Integrates with Django’s admin interface.
- Provides built-in validations and metadata handling.
Example
Python
from django.db import models
class GeeksModel(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
description = models.TextField()
This program defines a Django model called "GeeksModel" which has two fields:
- title: A character field with a 200-character limit.
- description: A text field for longer input.
This model creates a corresponding table in the database when migrations are applied. Django maps the fields defined in Django models into table fields of the database as shown below.

Creating a Django Model
1. To create Django Models, one needs to have a project and an app working in it. After you start an app you can create models in app_name/models.py. Before starting to use a model let's check how to start a project and create an app name geeksApp.
Refer to the following articles to check how to create a project and an app in Django.
2. In your app’s models.py file, define your model like this:
Python
from django.db import models
class GeeksModel(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
description = models.TextField()
last_modified = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
img = models.ImageField(upload_to="images/")
def __str__(self):
return self.title
This code defines a new Django model called "GeeksModel" which has four fields:
- title: a character field with a maximum length of 200.
- description: a text field.
- last_modified: a date and time field that automatically sets the date and time of creation.
- img: tores image uploads in the images/ directory.
- __str__ method is also defined to return the title of the instance of the model when the model is printed.
This code does not produce any output. It is defining a model class which can be used to create database tables and store data in Django.
Applying Migrations
Whenever we create a Model, Delete a Model, or update anything in any of models.py of our project. We need to run the following two commands
python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate
- makemigrations basically generates the SQL commands for preinstalled apps (which can be viewed in installed apps in settings.py) and your newly created app's model which you add in installed apps.
- migrate executes those SQL commands in the database file.
To know about Migrations in detail, visit: Basic App Model – Makemigrations and Migrate
Registering Models in Django Admin
To manage your model via the admin interface:
- Open admin.py in your app directory.
- Register your model:
Python
from django.contrib import admin
# Register your models here.
from .models import GeeksModel
admin.site.register(GeeksModel)
This code does not produce any output, it simply registers the GeeksModel with the admin site, so that it can be managed via the Django admin interface.
We can now use the admin panel to create, update, and delete model instances.

To check more on rendering models in django admin, visit - Render Model in Django Admin Interface
Basic CRUD Operations Using Django ORM
Django lets us interact with its database models, i.e. add, delete, modify and query objects, using a database-abstraction API called ORM(Object Relational Mapper). We can access the Django ORM by running the following command inside our project directory.
python manage.py shell
1. Adding Objects
To create an object of model Album and save it into the database, we need to write the following command:
Python
a = GeeksModel(
title="GeeksForGeeks",
description="A description here",
img="geeks/abc.png"
)
a.save()
2. Retrieving Objects
To retrieve all the objects of a model, we write the following command:
GeeksModel.objects.all()
3. Modifying existing Objects
We can modify an existing object as follows:
a = GeeksModel.objects.get(id=3)
a.title = "Updated Title"
a.save()
4. Delete an Object
To delete a single object, we need to write the following commands:
a = GeeksModel.objects.get(id=2)
a.delete()
To check detailed post of Django's ORM (Object) visit Django ORM – Inserting, Updating & Deleting Data
Validation on Fields in a Model
Built-in Field Validations in Django models are the default validations that come predefined to all Django fields. Every field comes in with built-in validations from Django validators. For example, IntegerField comes with built-in validation that it can only store integer values and that too in a particular range.
Enter the following code into models.py file of geeks app.
Python
from django.db import models
from django.db.models import Model
class GeeksModel(Model):
geeks_field = models.IntegerField()
def __str__(self):
return self.geeks_field
After running makemigrations and migrate on Django and rendering above model, let us try to create an instance using string "GfG is Best".
You can see in the admin interface, one can not enter a string in an IntegerField. Similarly every field has its own validations. To know more about validations visit, Built-in Field Validations – Django Models
Read next: Basic App Model – Makemigrations and Migrate
Django Model data types and fields list
The most important part of a model and the only required part of a model is the list of database fields it defines. Fields are specified by class attributes. Here is a list of all Field types used in Django.
Field Name | Description |
---|
AutoField | It An IntegerField that automatically increments. |
BigAutoField | It is a 64-bit integer, much like an AutoField except that it is guaranteed to fit numbers from 1 to 9223372036854775807. |
BigIntegerField | It is a 64-bit integer, much like an IntegerField except that it is guaranteed to fit numbers from -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807. |
BinaryField | A field to store raw binary data. |
BooleanField | A true/false field. The default form widget for this field is a CheckboxInput. |
CharField | It is string filed for small to large-sized input |
DateField | A date, represented in Python by a datetime.date instance |
| It is used for date and time, represented in Python by a datetime.datetime instance. |
DecimalField | It is a fixed-precision decimal number, represented in Python by a Decimal instance. |
DurationField | A field for storing periods of time. |
EmailField | It is a CharField that checks that the value is a valid email address. |
FileField | It is a file-upload field. |
FloatField | It is a floating-point number represented in Python by a float instance. |
ImageField | It inherits all attributes and methods from FileField, but also validates that the uploaded object is a valid image. |
IntegerField | It is an integer field. Values from -2147483648 to 2147483647 are safe in all databases supported by Django. |
GenericIPAddressField | An IPv4 or IPv6 address, in string format (e.g. 192.0.2.30 or 2a02:42fe::4). |
NullBooleanField | Like a BooleanField, but allows NULL as one of the options. |
PositiveIntegerField | Like an IntegerField, but must be either positive or zero (0). |
PositiveSmallIntegerField | Like a PositiveIntegerField, but only allows values under a certain (database-dependent) point. |
SlugField | Slug is a newspaper term. A slug is a short label for something, containing only letters, numbers, underscores or hyphens. They’re generally used in URLs. |
SmallIntegerField | It is like an IntegerField, but only allows values under a certain (database-dependent) point. |
TextField | A large text field. The default form widget for this field is a Textarea. |
TimeField | A time, represented in Python by a datetime.time instance. |
URLField | A CharField for a URL, validated by URLValidator. |
UUIDField | A field for storing universally unique identifiers. Uses Python’s UUID class. When used on PostgreSQL, this stores in a uuid datatype, otherwise in a char(32). |
Relationship Fields
Django also defines a set of fields that represent relations.
Field Name | Description |
---|
ForeignKey | A many-to-one relationship. Requires two positional arguments: the class to which the model is related and the on_delete option. |
ManyToManyField | A many-to-many relationship. Requires a positional argument: the class to which the model is related, which works exactly the same as it does for ForeignKey, including recursive and lazy relationships. |
OneToOneField | A one-to-one relationship. Conceptually, this is similar to a ForeignKey with unique=True, but the “reverse” side of the relation will directly return a single object. |
Field Options
Field Options are the arguments given to each field for applying some constraint or imparting a particular characteristic to a particular Field. For example, adding an argument null = True to CharField will enable it to store empty values for that table in relational database.
Here are the field options and attributes that an CharField can use.
Field Options | Description |
---|
Null | If True, Django will store empty values as NULL in the database. Default is False. |
Blank | If True, the field is allowed to be blank. Default is False. |
db_column | The name of the database column to use for this field. If this isn’t given, Django will use the field’s name. |
Default | The default value for the field. This can be a value or a callable object. If callable it will be called every time a new object is created. |
help_text | Extra “help” text to be displayed with the form widget. It’s useful for documentation even if your field isn’t used on a form. |
primary_key | If True, this field is the primary key for the model. |
editable | If False, the field will not be displayed in the admin or any other ModelForm. They are also skipped during model validation. Default is True. |
error_messages | The error_messages argument lets you override the default messages that the field will raise. Pass in a dictionary with keys matching the error messages you want to override. |
help_text | Extra “help” text to be displayed with the form widget. It’s useful for documentation even if your field isn’t used on a form. |
verbose_name | A human-readable name for the field. If the verbose name isn’t given, Django will automatically create it using the field’s attribute name, converting underscores to spaces. |
validators | A list of validators to run for this field. See the validators documentation for more information. |
Unique | If True, this field must be unique throughout the table. |
Defining models and fields
Create Model in Django
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