Interacting with a Database: Models

In Chapter 3, we covered the fundamentals of building dynamic Web sites with Django: setting up views and URLconfs. As we explained, a view is responsible for doing some arbitrary logic and then returning a response. In the example, our arbitrary logic was to calculate the current date and time.

In modern Web applications, the arbitrary logic often involves interacting with a database. Behind the scenes, a database-driven Web site connects to a database server, retrieves some data out of it, and displays that data, nicely formatted, on a Web page. Or, similarly, the site could provide functionality that lets site visitors populate the database on their own.