How Django processes a request (URL → View → Template) - Try It Yourself

How Django processes a request (URL → View → Template)

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple Django web app that shows a welcome message on the homepage. You want to understand how Django takes a web address (URL), finds the right code to run (view), and then shows a webpage (template) to the user.

🎯 Goal: Create a Django project with a URL pattern, a view function, and a template that work together to display the text "Welcome to Django!" on the homepage.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a URL pattern for the homepage ('/')

Create a view function called home_view that returns a rendered template

Create a template file called home.html that displays the welcome message

Connect the URL pattern to the home_view function

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Websites use this URL → View → Template flow to show pages to users based on the web address they visit.

💼 Career

Understanding this flow is essential for backend web developers working with Django to build dynamic websites.

1

Set up the URL pattern

In the urls.py file, import path from django.urls. Create a list called urlpatterns with one entry: use path to map the empty string '' (homepage) to a view function called home_view. Do not import or define home_view yet.

Django

from django.urls import path

# Define urlpatterns list with a path for '' mapped to home_view
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember, urlpatterns is a list of path calls. The first argument is the URL pattern as a string, the second is the view function name.

2

Create the view function

In the views.py file, import render from django.shortcuts. Define a function called home_view that takes a request parameter. Inside the function, return the result of calling render with request, the template name 'home.html', and no context.

Django

from django.urls import path

urlpatterns = [
    path('', home_view),
]

# In views.py, import render and define home_view(request) that returns render(request, 'home.html')
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The view function must accept request and return render(request, 'home.html').

3

Create the template file

Create a file named home.html inside a folder called templates. Inside home.html, write HTML code that displays the text Welcome to Django! inside an <h1> tag.

Django

from django.urls import path

urlpatterns = [
    path('', home_view),
]

from django.shortcuts import render

def home_view(request):
    return render(request, 'home.html')

Welcome to Django! -->
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The template is a simple HTML file with an <h1> tag containing the welcome text.

4

Connect URL to view and run server

Make sure the home_view function is imported in urls.py from the views module. The urlpatterns list should map the empty string '' to home_view. This completes the connection from URL to view to template.

Django

from django.urls import path
from .views import home_view

urlpatterns = [
    path('', home_view),
]

# Your code here to import home_view and connect URL to view

Need a hint?

Import home_view in urls.py using from .views import home_view.