In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to send Ajax requests in Django 2 and Python 3.7 to add CRUD operations in your application and manipulate your Django models and database without having to refresh your web pages each time.
Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and it’s a way for getting data from the server and updating the page on the fly without refreshing the page.
Creating a Virtual Environment
Make sure you have Python 3 installed (Python 3.7 is the latest as of this writing) and start by creating a virtual environment for your project’s packages:
$ python -m venv myenv
Next, activate your virtual environment using:
$ source myenv/bin/activate
Installing Django 2 and Creating a Project
Now, you need to install Django using pip:
$ python -m pip install django
Next, create a Django project using:
$ django-admin startproject djangoajaxdemo
Next, you need to create a Django application using the manage.py script:
$ cd djangoajaxdemo
$ python manage.py startapp rooms
Next, you need to add it to your project’s installed apps array in the settings.py file:
INSTALLED_APPS = [
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'rooms'
]
Adding jQuery
In this tutorial, we’ll be using jQuery to send Ajax requests to Django. You can also use any other HTTP client like Axios, the JavaScript Fetch API available on modern browsers or the XMLHttpRequest interface.
First of all, you need to get jquery from the official website and include it in your project or use a CDN. Go to the official website and get the CDN of the version of jQuery you want to use.
In my case, I’ll be using jQuery 3.3.1 from https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.3.1.min.js.
Inside the rooms application, create a templates/rooms folder and create a base.html file:
{% load static %}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title> Django Ajax CRUD with jQuery</title>
<link rel="stylesheet"
href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css"
crossorigin="anonymous">
</head>
<body>
<div class="container d-flex h-100">
<div class="row justify-content-center">
<div class="col-10">
{% block main %}
{% endblock %}
</div>
</div>
</div>
{% block js %}
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.3.1.min.js"></script>
{% endblock %}
{% block extrajs %}
{% endblock %}
</body>
</html>
Adding a Model
We’ll be adding CRUD operations against a Room model. Open the rooms/models.py file and add the following code:
from django.db import models
class Room(models.Model):
ROOM_TYPES = (
(1, 'Single'),
(2, 'Double'),
(3, 'Triple'),
)
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
status = models.CharField(max_length=30, blank=True)
room_number = models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True)
nobeds = models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True)
room_type = models.PositiveSmallIntegerField(choices=ROOM_TYPES)
Adding CRUD Views
In the rooms/views.py file, add the following class based and generic views for performing CRUD operations:
from django.views.generic import View
from django.http import JsonResponse
from django import forms
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
from django.utils.decorators import method_decorator
from django.forms.models import model_to_dict
from .models import Room
class RoomForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = Room
fields = '__all__'
class RoomList(View):
def get(self, request):
rooms = list(Room.objects.all().values())
data = dict()
data['rooms'] = rooms
return JsonResponse(data)
class RoomDetail(View):
def get(self, request, pk):
room = get_object_or_404(Room, pk=pk)
data = dict()
data['room'] = model_to_dict(room)
return JsonResponse(data)
@method_decorator(csrf_exempt, name='dispatch')
class RoomCreate(CreateView):
def post(self, request):
data = dict()
form = RoomForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
room = form.save()
data['room'] = model_to_dict(room)
else:
data['error'] = "form not valid!"
return JsonResponse(data)
class RoomUpdate(View):
def post(self, request, pk):
data = dict()
room = Room.objects.get(pk=pk)
form = RoomForm(instance=room, data=request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
room = form.save()
data['room'] = model_to_dict(room)
else:
data['error'] = "form not valid!"
return JsonResponse(data)
class RoomDelete(View):
def post(self, request, pk):
data = dict()
room = Room.objects.get(pk=pk)
if room:
room.delete()
data['message'] = "Room deleted!"
else:
data['message'] = "Error!"
return JsonResponse(data)
Next, let’s add the URLs. Open the urls.py file and add:
from django.urls import path, include
from django.views.generic.base import TemplateView
from rooms import views
urlpatterns = [
path('rooms/', TemplateView.as_view(template_name="rooms/main.html"), name='room_main'),
path('rooms/list', views.RoomList.as_view(), name='room_list'),
path('rooms/create', views.RoomCreate.as_view(), name='room_create'),
path('rooms/update/<int:pk>', views.RoomUpdate.as_view(), name='room_update'),
path('rooms/delete/<int:pk>', views.RoomDelete.as_view(), name='room_delete'),
path('rooms/<int:pk>', views.RoomDetail.as_view(), name='room_detail'),
]
Adding a Template
Since we’ll be using Ajax for making CRUD operations in our Django application, we will not need multiple pages or templates but instead we’ll conceive our application as a Single Page Application.
Let’s create a main.html file inside the rooms/templates/rooms folder with the following content:
{% extends 'rooms/base.html' %}
{% block main %}
{% endblock %}
{% block extrajs %}
<script src="{% static 'js/app.js' %}"></script>
{% endblock %}
Next under your project’s root folder, create the static/js/ folder and add an app.js file with the following content:
$(function () {
console.log("Hello!");
});
In your urls.py file, add the following URL pattern so you can access your static files in development mode:
from django.conf import settings
# [...]
if settings.DEBUG:
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
In the settings.py file, add the following setting to configure your static folder:
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)
If your run your application and visit the http://127.0.0.1:8000/rooms/, you should see a Hello! in the console of your browser which means your static files are configured correctly.
In this tutorial, we’ll implement the list and delete operations. For create and update operations, we’ll see them in the next tutorial.
Getting Rooms with jQuery.ajax()
In your app.js file, add the following code to get data from the rooms/list endpoint by sending a GET Ajax request:
$.ajax({
url: '/rooms/list',
type: 'get',
dataType: 'json',
success: function (data) {
let rows = '';
data.rooms.forEach(room => {
rows += `
<tr>
<td>${room.room_number}</td>
<td>${room.name}</td>
<td>${room.nobeds}</td>
<td>${room.room_type}</td>
<td>
<button class="btn deleteBtn" data-id="${room.id}">Delete</button>
<button class="btn updateBtn" data-id="${room.id}">Update</button>
</td>
</tr>`;
});
$('[#myTable](https://paper.dropbox.com/?q=%23myTable) > tbody').append(rows);
$('.deleteBtn').each((i, elm) => {
$(elm).on("click", (e) => {
deleteRoom($(elm))
})
})
}
});
Deleting Rooms with jQuery.ajax()
Next, you need to add an implementation for the deleteRoom(e) method:
function deleteRoom(el){
roomId = $(el).data('id')
$.ajax({
url: `/rooms/delete/${roomId}`,
type: 'post',
dataType: 'json',
success: function (data) {
$(el).parents()[1].remove()
}
});
}
Now go back to your rooms/templates/rooms/main.html template and add the table:
{% block main %}
<table class="table table-bordered" id="myTable">
<thead>
<th>
Room Number
</th>
<th>
Name
</th>
<th>
Number of Beds
</th>
<th>
Type
</th>
<th>
Actions
</th>
</thead>
<tbody>
</tbody>
</table>
<div id="roomform">
<button id="createRoom" class="btn"> Create Room </button>
</div>
{% endblock %}
This is a screenshot of our page at this point:
In the next tutorial, we’ll see how to create a form and send it with jQuery and Ajax to our Django endpoints to create and update rooms.
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