How do I add data to an existing model in Django?

Question

Currently, I am writing up a bit of a product-based CMS as my first project.

Here is my question. How can I add additional data (products) to my Product model?

I have added '/admin/products/add' to my urls.py, but I don't really know where to go from there. How would i build both my view and my template? Please keep in mind that I don't really know all that much Python, and i am very new to Django

How can I do this all without using this existing django admin interface.

Answer 1

You will want to wire your URL to the Django create_object generic view, and pass it either "model" (the model you want to create) or "form_class" (a customized ModelForm class). There are a number of other arguments you can also pass to override default behaviors.

Sample URLconf for the simplest case:

from django.conf.urls.defaults import *
from django.views.generic.create_update import create_object

from my_products_app.models import Product

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/products/add/$', create_object, {'model': Product}))

Your template will get the context variable "form", which you just need to wrap in a <form> tag and add a submit button. The simplest working template (by default should go in "my_products_app/product_form.html"):

<form action="." method="POST">
  {{ form }}
  <input type="submit" name="submit" value="add">
</form>

Note that your Product model must have a get_absolute_url method, or else you must pass in the post_save_redirect parameter to the view. Otherwise it won't know where to redirect to after save.