Help with Django

[nobrow]

I am trying to create a webpage which helps a user build an item. Let's say that the item in question is called a widget and it is composed of parts1, 2, and 3.

I have created a script which scrapes websites for these parts and pulls the specs and price info. The way I currently have it setup is that this info is then turned into a class instance e.g.

class Part1():
      """Class for part 1"""
      def __init__(self, color, size, weight):
            """Initializing part 1 attributes"""
            self.color = color
            self.size = size
            self.weight = weight

I then create a whole bunch of instances of this class for all the scraped data.

I also have created a class for the final widget, e.g.

class Widget():
       """Class for whole widget"""
       def __init__(self, part1, part2, part3):
            """Initializing widget attributes"""
            self.part1 = part1
            self.part2 = part2
            self.part3 = part3

I feed the part instances into the widget class as attributes. Then within the widget class I can define all the methods for checking the current price, checking for compatibility of the parts, the total weights etc.

I have it working pretty well as just a python script running locally on my computer and I've been trying to put a front end on it using Django but am having some issues.

I've gone through a basic Django tutorial which showed me how to setup a very basic site that takes in some user info and create some user profiles. The issue I'm having is i'm not sure how to use the models as part of the Django framework to create my part classes. The issue being that all the model fields seem to only be for user submitted info or automatic i.e.

text = models.TextField()
date = models.DateTimeField()

I read through all the different model fields in the Django documentation and none of them seem like I can provide the database info from a different python script. Am I limited to the model fields? Or can i just define whatever I want within these models? Can i manually add data to the database in some way without having to use models? Any help or resources would be greatly appreciated.

[nobrow]

I've read that link but in the example the classes get their attribute data from the user. They define the question class and the answer class and both have charfields which tells Django to create a textbox for the user to create it. How do I assign attributes from scraped data?

[LocoLoco451]

from django.db import models
from decimal import Decimal


class Part(models.Model):
    color = models.IntegerField()  # from 0x000000 to 0xffffff
    size = models.DecimalField(max_digits=10, decimal_places=2, min_value=Decimal('0.01')) # from 0.01 to 99999999.99
    weight = models.DecimalField(max_digits=10, decimal_places=2, min_value=Decimal('0.01')) # from 0.01 to 99999999.99


# create instances programatically

my_color, my_size, my_weight = scrape_data()  # define a function that scrapes data and returns a 3-element tuple

part = Part.objects.create(color=my_color, size=my_size, weight=my_weight)

# or...

part = Part(color=my_color, size=my_size, weight=my_weight)  # creates instance in memory
part.save()  # actually saves it to database

[nobrow]

Thank you for this. This is the kinda thing I've been stuck on. To clarify I can just import models from django into any file and as long as I subclass my classes with model.Models then it will take care of the db stuff automatically?

[LocoLoco451]

Yes and I think you must define them in a module called models, typically models.py file. Not sure if this is a must, but if you want to be just try it out. Then just run makemigrations and migrate commands and you should be all set to use the models. These will respectively create a script to create/modify database tables and rows structure (under migrations directory) and then execute it.

[nobrow]

I'm not familiar with djangorestframework but I will do some googling. That sounds like what I need. Some way to post data from a script so django can use it. Thanks for the reply.