Top 50 Django Interview Questions-- Edureka

Django along with Python is one of the most in-demand skills and surely amongst some of the trickiest ones.
So if you want to prepare yourself to perform the best in the upcoming Django interview, here are the top 50
commonly asked Django Interview Questions and Answers.

Before moving on, let’s take a look at the top 10 Django Interview Questions:

Q1. What is the difference between Flask and Django?

Q2. What is Django?
Q3. Do you know any companies that use Django?
Q4. What are the features of Django?
Q5. How do you check for the version of Django installed on your system?
Q6. What are the advantages of using Django?
Q7. Explain Django’s architecture.
Q8. Give a brief about the Django admin.
Q9. How do you connect your Django Project to the database?
Q10. What are the various files that are created when you create a Django Project? Explain briefly.

Q1. What is the difference between Flask and Django?

Comparison Factor Django Flask

Project Type Supports large projects Built for smaller projects

Templates, Admin and ORM Built-in Requires installation

Requires more learning and

Ease of Learning Easy to learn
practice

Allows complete web More flexible as the user can select

Flexibility development without the need for any third-party tools according to
third-party tools their choice and requirements

Visual Debugging Does not support Visual Debug Supports Visual Debug

Type of framework Batteries included Simple, lightweight

Bootstrapping-tool Built-it Not available

Q2. What is Django?

Django is a web development framework that was developed in a fast-paced newsroom. It is a free and
open-source framework that was  named after Django Reinhardt who was a jazz guitarist from the 1930s.
Django is maintained by a non-profit organization called the Django Software Foundation. The main goal of
Django is to enable Web Development quickly and with ease.

Q3. Name some companies that make use of Django?

Some of the companies that make use of Django are Instagram, DISCUS, Mozilla Firefox, YouTube,
Pinterest, Reddit, etc.

Q4. What are the features of Django? 

 SEO Optimized
 Extremely fast
 Fully loaded framework that comes along with authentications, content administrations, RSS feeds,
etc
  Very secure thereby helping developers avoid common security mistakes such as cross-site request
forgery (csrf), clickjacking, cross-site scripting, etc
 It is exceptionally scalable which in turn helps meet the heaviest traffic demands
 Immensely versatile which allows you to develop any kind of websites

Q5. How do you check for the version of Django installed on your system?
To check for the version of Django installed on your system, you can open the command prompt and enter
the following command:

 python -m django –version

You can also try to import Django and use the get_version() method as follows:

1 import django
2 print(django.get_version())
Q6. What are the advantages of using Django?

 Django’s stack is loosely coupled with tight cohesion

 The Django apps make use of very less code
 Allows quick development of websites
 Follows the DRY or the Don’t Repeat Yourself Principle which means, one concept or a piece of
data should live in just one place
 Consistent at low as well as high levels
 Behaviours are not implicitly assumed, they are rather explicitly specified
 SQL statements are not executed too many times and are optimized internally
 Can easily drop into raw SQL whenever required
 Flexibility while using URL’s

Q7. Explain Django architecture.

Django follows the MVT or Model View Template architecture whcih is based on the MVC or Model View
Controller architecture. The main difference between these two is that Django itself takes care of the
controller part.
According to Django, the ‘view’ basically describes the data presented to the user. It does not deal with
how the data  looks but rather what the data actually is. Views are basically callback functions for the
specified URL’s and these callback functions describe which data is presented.

The ‘templates’ on the other hand deal with the presentation of data, thereby, separating the content from its
presentation. In Django, views delegate to the templates to present the data.

The ‘controller’ here is Django itself which sends the request to the appropriate view in accordance with the
specified URL. This is why Django is referred to as MTV rather than MVC architecture.

Q8. Give a brief about ‘django-admin’.

django-admin is the command-line utility of Django for administrative tasks. Using the django-admin you
can perform a number of tasks some of which are listed out in the following table:

Task Command

To display the usage information and the list of the

django-admin help
commands provided by each application
To display the list of available commands django-admin help –command
To display the description of a given command and
django-admin help <command>
the list of its available options
Determining the version of Django django-admin version
Creating new migrations based on the changes made
django-admin makemigrations
in models
Synchronizing the database state with the current set
django-admin migrate
of models and migrations
Starting the development server django-admin runserver
Sending a test email in order to confirm the email
django-admin sendtestemail
sending through Django is working
To start the Python interactive interpreter django-admin shell
To show all the migrations in your project django-admin showmigrations

Q9. How do you connect your Django project to the database?

Django comes with a default database which is SQLite. To connect your project to this database, use the
following commands:

1. python manage.py migrate (migrate command looks at the INSTALLED_APPS settings and creates
database tables accordingly)
2. python manage.py makemigrations (tells Django you have created/ changed your models)
3. python manage.py sqlmigrate <name of the app followed by the generated id> (sqlmigrate takes the
migration names and returns their SQL)

Q10. What are the various files that are created when you create a Django Project? Explain briefly.
When you create a project using the startproject command, the following files will be created:

File Name Description

A command-line utility that allows you to interact

manage.py
with your Django project
An empty file that tells Python that the current
__init__.py
directory should be considered as a Python package
settings.py Consists of the settings for the current project
urls.py Contains the URL’s for the current project
This is an entry-point for the web servers to serve the
wsgi.py
project you have created

Q11. What are ‘Models’?

Models are a single and definitive source for information about your data. It consists of all the essential
fields and behaviors of the data you have stored. Often, each model will map to a single specific database
table.

In Django, models serve as the abstraction layer that is used for structuring and manipulating your data.
Django models are a subclass of the django.db.models.Model class and the attributes in the models represent
database fields.

Q12. What are ‘views’?

Django views serve the purpose of encapsulation. They encapsulate the logic liable for processing a user’s
request and for returning
the response back to the user. Views in Django either return an HttpResponse or raise an exception such as
Http404. HttpResponse contains the objects that consist of the content that is to be rendered to the user.
Views can also be used to perform tasks such as read records from the database, delegate to the templates,
generate a PDF file, etc.

Q13. What are ‘templates’?

Django’s template layer renders the information to be presented to the user in a designer-friendly format.
Using templates, you can generate HTML dynamically. The HTML consists of both static as well as
dynamic parts of the content. You can have any number of templates depending on the requirement of your
project. It is also fine to have none of them.

Django has its own template system called the Django template language (DTL). Regardless of the backend,
you can also load and render templates using Django’s standard admin.

Q14. What is the difference between a Project and an App?

An app is basically a Web Application that is created to do something for example, a database of employee
records. A project, on the other hand, is a collection of apps of some particular website. Therefore, a single
project can consist of ‘n’ number of apps and a single app can be in multiple projects.

Q15. What are the different inheritance styles in Django?

Django has three possible inheritance styles:

Inheritance style Description

Used when you want to use the parent class to hold

information that you don’t want to type for each
Abstract base classes
child model. Here, the parent class is never used in
solitude
Used when you have to subclass an existing model
and want each
Multi-table inheritance
model to have its own database table
Used if you only want to modify the Python-level
Proxy models behavior of a model, without changing the ‘models’
fields in any way
Q16. What are static files?
Static files in Django are those files that serve the purpose of additional files such as the CSS, images
or JavaScript files. These files are managed by django.contrib.staticfiles. These files are created within the
project app directory by creating a subdirectory named as static.

Q17. What are ‘signals’?

Django consists of a signal dispatcher that helps allow decoupled applications to get notified when actions
occur elsewhere in the framework. Django provides a set of built-in signals that basically allow senders to
notify a set of receivers when some action is executed. Some of the signals are as follows:

Signal Description

django.db.models.signals.pre_save
Sent before or after a model’s save() method is
called
django.db.models.signals.post_save
django.db.models.signals.pre_delete
Sent before or after a model’s delete() method or
queryset’s delete() method is called
django.db.models.signals.post_delete
Sent when Django starts or finishes an HTTP
django.db.models.signals.m2m_changed
request

Q18. Briefly explain Django Field Class.

‘Field’ is basically an abstract class that actually represents a column in the database table. The Field class,
is in turn, a subclass of  RegisterLookupMixin. In Django, these fields are used to create database tables
(db_type()) which are used to map Python types to the database using get_prep_value() and vice versa
using from_db_value() method. Therefore, fields are fundamental pieces in different Django APIs such as
models and querysets.

Q19. How to do you create a Django project?

To create a Django project, cd into the directory where you would like to create your project and type the
following command:

 django-admin startproject xyz

NOTE: Here, xyz is the name of the project. You can give any name that you desire.

Q20. What is mixin?
Mixin is a type of multiple inheritance wherein you can combine behaviors and attributes of more than one
parent class. Mixins provide an excellent way to reuse code from multiple classes. For example, generic
class-based views consist of a mixin called TemplateResponseMixin whose purpose is to
define render_to_response() method. When this is combined with a class present in the View, the result will
be a TemplateView class.

One drawback of using these mixins is that it becomes difficult to analyze what a child class is doing and
which methods to override in case of its code being too scattered between multiple classes.

Q21. What are ‘sessions’?

Sessions are fully supported in Django. Using the session framework, you can easily store and retrieve
arbitrary data based on the per-site-visitors. This framework basically stores data on the server-side and
takes care of sending and receiving cookies. These cookies consist of a session ID but not the actual data
itself unless you explicitly use a cookie-based backend.
Q22. What do you mean by context?
Context in Django is a dictionary mapping template variable name given to Python objects. This is the
conventional name, but you can give any other name of your choice if you wish to do it.

Q23. When can you use iterators in Django ORM?

Iterators in Python are basically containers that consist of a countable number of elements. Any object that is
an iterator implements two methods which are, the __init__() and the __next__()  methods. When you are
making use of iterators in Django, the best situation to do it is when you have to process results that will
require a large amount of memory space. To do this, you can make use of the iterator() method which
basically evaluates a QuerySet and returns the corresponding iterator over the results.

Q24. Explain the caching strategies of Django?

Caching basically means to save the output of an expensive calculation in order to avoid performing the
same calculation again. Django provides a robust cache system which in turn helps you save dynamic web
pages so that they don’t have to be evaluated over and over again for each request. Some of the caching
strategies of Django are listed down in the following table:

Strategy Description

Memory-based cache server which is the fastest and

Memcached
most efficient
Cache values are stored as separate files in a
Filesystem caching
serialized order
This is actually the default cache in case you have
Local-memory caching not specified any other. This type of cache is per-
process and thread-safe as well
Cache data will be stored in the database and works
Database caching very well if you have a fast and well-indexed
database server

Q25. Explain the use of Middlewares in Django.

Middleware is a framework that is light and low-level plugin system for altering Django’s input and output
globally. It is basically a framework of hooks into the request/ response processing of Django. Each
component in middleware has some particular task. For example, the AuthenticationMiddleware is used to
associate users with requests using sessions. Django provides many other middlewares such as cache
middleware to enable site-wide cache, common middleware that performs many tasks such as forbidding
access to user agents, URL rewriting, etc, GZip middleware which is used to compress the content for
browsers, etc.

Q26. What is the significance of manage.py file in Django?

The manage.py file is automatically generated whenever you create a project. This is basically a command-
line utility that helps you to interact with your Django project in various ways. It does the same things as
django-admin but along with that, it also sets the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable in
order to point to your project’s settings. Usually, it is better to make use of manage.py rather than the
django-admin in case you are working on a single project.

Q27. Explain the use of ‘migrate’ command in Django?

In Django, migrations are used to propagate changes made to the models. The migrate command is basically
used to apply or unapply migrations changes made to the models. This command basically synchronizes the
current set of models and migrations with the database state. You can use this command with or without
parameters. In case you do not specify any parameter, all apps will have all their migrations running.
Q28. How to view and filter items from the database?
In order to view all the items from your database, you can make use of the ‘all()’ function in your interactive
shell as follows:

 XYZ.objects.all()     where XYZ is some class that you have created in your models

To filter out some element from your database, you either use the get() method or the filter method as
follows:

 XYZ.objects.filter(pk=1)
 XYZ.objects.get(id=1)

Q29. Explain how a request is processed in Django?

In case some user requests a page from some Django powered site, the system follows an algorithm that
determines which Python code needs to be executed. Here are the steps that sum up the algorithm:

1. Django first determines which root URLconf or URL configuration module is to be used
2. Then, that particular Python module is loaded and then Django looks for the variable urlpatterns
3. These URL patterns are then run by Django, and it stops at the first match of the requested URL
4. Once that is done, the Django then imports and calls the given view
5. In case none of the URLs match the requested URL, Django invokes an error-handling view

Q30. How did Django come into existence?

Django basically grew from a very practical need. World Online developers namely Adrian Holovaty and
Simon Willison started using Python to develop its websites. As they went on building intensive, richly
interactive sites, they began to pull out a generic Web development framework that allowed them to build
Web applications more and more quickly. In summer 2005, World Online decided to open-source the
resulting software, which is, Django.

Q31. How to use file-based sessions?

In order to make use of file-based sessions, you will need to set the SESSION_ENGINE setting to
“django.contrib.sessions.backends.file”.

Q32. Explain the Django URLs in brief?

Django allows you to design your own URLs however you like. The aim is to maintain a clean URL scheme
without any framework limitations. In order to create URLs for your app, you will need to create a Python
module informally called the URLconf or URL configuration which is pure Python code and is also a
mapping between the URL path expressions to the Python methods. The length of this mapping can be as
long or short as required and can also reference other mappings. When processing a request, the requested
URL is matched with the URLs present in the urls.py file and the corresponding view is retrieved. For more
details about this, you can refer to the answer to Q29.

Q33. Give the exception classes present in Django.

Django uses its own exceptions as well as those present in Python. Django core exceptions are present
in django.core.exceptions class some of which are mentioned in the table below:

Exception Description

Raised when you try to use your models before the

AppRegistryNotReady app loading process (initializes the ORM) is
completed.
ObjectDoesNotExist This is the base class for DoesNotExist exceptions
This exception may be raised if a query won’t return
EmptyResultSet
any result
 This exception is raised by a model’s
FieldDoesNotExist _meta.get_field() function in case the requested field
does not exist
This is raised by a query if multiple objects are
MultipleObjectsReturned
returned and only one object was expected

Q34. Is Django stable?

Yes, Django is quite stable. Many companies like Instagram, Discus, Pinterest, and Mozilla have been using
Django for a duration of many years now. Not just this, Websites that are built using Django have weathered
traffic spikes of over 50 thousand hits per second.

Q35. Does the Django framework scale?

Yes. Hardware is much cheaper when compared to the development time and this is why Django is designed
to make full use of any amount of hardware that you can provide it. Django makes use of a “shared-nothing”
architecture meaning you can add hardware at any level i.e database servers, caching servers or Web/
application servers.

Q36. Is Django a CMS?

Django is not a CMS (content-management-system) . It is just a Web framework, a tool that allows you to
build websites.

Q37. What Python version should be used with Django?

The following table gives you the details of the versions of Python that you can use for Django:

Python 3 is actually the most recommended because it is fast, has more features and is better supported. In
the case of Python 2.7, Django 1.1 can be used along with it but only till the year 2020.

Q38. Does Django support NoSQL?

NoSQL basically stands for “not only SQL”. This is considered as an alternative to the traditional RDBMS
or the relational Databases.  Officially, Django does not support NoSQL databases. However, there are
third-party projects, such as Django non-rel, that allow NoSQL functionality in Django. Currently, you can
use MongoDB and Google App Engine.

Q39. How can you customize the functionality of the Django admin interface?
There are a number of ways to do this. You can piggyback on top of an add/ change form that is
automatically generated by Django, you can add JavaScript modules using the js parameter. This parameter
is basically a list of URLs that point to the JavaScript modules that are to be included in your project within
a <script> tag. In case you want to do more rather than just playing around with from, you can exclusively
write views for the admin.

Q40. Is Django better than Flask?

Django is a framework that allows you to build large projects. On the other hand, Flask is used to build
smaller websites but flask is much easier to learn and use compared to Django. Django is a full-fledged
framework and no third-party packages are required. Flask is more of a lightweight framework that allows
you to install third-party tools as and how you like. So, the answer to this question basically depends on the
user’s need and in case the need is very heavy, the answer is definitely, Django.
Q41. Give an example of a Django view.
A view in Django either returns an HttpResponse or raises an exception such as Http404. HttpResponse
contains the objects that consist of the content that is to be rendered to the user.

EXAMPLE:

1 from django.http import HttpResponse

2 def hello_world(request):
3     html = "
4 <h1>Hello World!</h1>
5  
6 "
7     return HttpResponse(html)

Q42. What should be done in case you get a message saying “Please enter the correct username and
password” even after entering the right details to log in to the admin section?

In case you have entered the right details and still not able to login to the admin site, cross verify if the user
account has is_active and is_staff attributes set to True. The admin site allows only those users for whom
these values are set to True.

Q43. What should be done in case you are not able to log in even after entering the right details and you get
no error message?
In this case, the login cookie is not being set rightly. This happens if the domain of the cookie sent out by
Django does not match the domain in your browser. For this, you must change
the SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN  setting to match that of your browser.

Q44. How can you limit admin access so that the objects can only be edited by those users who have created
them?
Django’s ModelAdmin class provides customization hooks using which, you can control the visibility and
editability of objects in the admin. To do this, you can use the get_queryset() and has_change_permission().

Q45. What to do when you don’t see all objects appearing on the admin site?
Inconsistent row counts are a result of missing Foreign Key values or if the Foreign Key field is set to
null=False. If the ForeignKey points to a record that does not exist and if that foreign is present in
the list_display  method, the record will not be shown the admin changelist.

Q46. What do you mean by the csrf_token?

The csrf_token is used for protection against Cross-Site Request Forgeries. This kind of attack takes place
when a malicious website consists of a link, some JavaScript or a form whose aim is to perform some action
on your website by using the login credentials of a genuine user.

Q47. Does Django support multiple-column Primary Keys?

No. Django only supports single-column Primary Keys.
Q48. How can you see the raw SQL queries that Django is running?
First, make sure that your DEBUG setting is set to True. Then, type the following commands:

1 from django.db import connection

2 connection.queries

Q49. Is it mandatory to use the model/ database layer?

No. The model/ database layer is actually decoupled from the rest of the framework.

Q50. How to make a variable available to all the templates?

You can make use of the RequestContext in case all your templates require the same objects, such as, in the
case of menus. This method takes an HttpRequest as its first parameter and it automatically populates the
context with a few variables, according to the engine’s
context_processors configuration option.

With this, we have reached the end of this article on Django Interview Questions. I hope you are clear with
all that has been shared with you in this article. Make sure you practice as much as possible and revert
your experience.  

Got a question for us? Please mention it in the comments section of this “Django Interview Questions” blog
and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

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