Glossary

Django-specific vocabulary that appears throughout the source tree. The official prose glossary lives at docs/glossary.txt; this page is the engineer's cheat-sheet, focused on what each term maps to in the code.

| Term | What it means | Where it lives in the code | | ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | | Project | A Python package with a settings.py and (usually) a manage.py. | User code; scaffold in django/conf/project_template/ | | App | A reusable Python package with at least an apps.py declaring an AppConfig. Apps are listed in INSTALLED_APPS. | Registry: django/apps/registry.py and config.py | | AppConfig | The metadata object describing an installed app (label, models module, ready hook). | django/apps/config.py | | Model | A subclass of django.db.models.Model. Maps to a database table. | django/db/models/base.py | | Manager | The class accessed as Model.objects. Returns querysets. | django/db/models/manager.py | | QuerySet | Lazy, chainable description of a database query. | django/db/models/query.py | | Q object | A boolean expression that can be combined with &, |, ~. | django/db/models/query_utils.py | | F expression | A reference to a column's value, evaluated database-side. | django/db/models/expressions.py | | Lookup | A filter operator (exact, gte, icontains, in, …). | django/db/models/lookups.py | | Field | A column descriptor on a model. | django/db/models/fields/__init__.py | | Migration | A Python file describing schema changes; one per model alteration set. | django/db/migrations/migration.py | | Operation | A single migration step (AddField, CreateModel, RunPython, …). | django/db/migrations/operations/ | | Schema editor | The backend object that emits DDL. | django/db/backends/base/schema.py | | Backend | A database driver wrapper (sqlite3, postgresql, mysql, oracle). | django/db/backends/<engine>/ | | Database wrapper | The connection-level object exposed as connection. | django/db/backends/base/base.py (subclassed per backend) | | URL pattern | A (regex_or_path, view, name) triple registered with urlpatterns. | django/urls/conf.py, resolvers.py | | Resolver | The trie-like structure that walks URL patterns to find a view. | django/urls/resolvers.py | | View | A callable that takes an HttpRequest and returns an HttpResponse. | django/views/ | | Class-based view | A view implemented as a class with HTTP-method handlers. | django/views/generic/base.py | | Middleware | A callable wrapping the view chain; can short-circuit or transform requests/responses. | django/middleware/, django/utils/deprecation.MiddlewareMixin | | Template | A text file processed by an Engine. | django/template/ | | Engine | A configured template environment (Django or Jinja2 backend). | django/template/engine.py, template/backends/ | | Form | A class describing a set of fields with validation. | django/forms/forms.py | | ModelForm | A form generated from a model's fields. | django/forms/models.py | | Formset | A collection of forms for the same model/data shape. | django/forms/formsets.py | | Widget | The HTML rendering for a form field. | django/forms/widgets.py | | Signal | An in-process pub/sub event. | django/dispatch/dispatcher.py | | Receiver | A function connected to a signal. | Same. | | Signed cookie | A cryptographically signed value stored client-side. | django/core/signing.py | | CSRF token | The cross-site request forgery prevention token. | django/middleware/csrf.py | | Session | Server-side state keyed by a cookie. | django/contrib/sessions/ | | Contrib app | An optional app that ships with Django (under django/contrib/). | django/contrib/ | | Admin | The auto-generated admin interface contrib app. | django/contrib/admin/ | | System check | A startup validator that emits warnings/errors. | django/core/checks/ | | Translation catalog | A .po/.mo file under <app>/locale/. | Many places, e.g., django/conf/locale/ | | Static files | Files served as-is, collected via collectstatic. | django/contrib/staticfiles/ | | Storage | A filesystem-or-cloud abstraction for file-like objects. | django/core/files/storage/ | | Manage.py command | A subclass of BaseCommand. | django/core/management/base.py, commands/ | | Trac ticket | The canonical bug/feature ID, e.g., "Fixed #36919". | https://code.djangoproject.com |

For terms that aren't in this table, search the source — Django generally calls things by their plain name. When a class has an unusual abbreviation (e.g., BoundField, ResolverMatch, RawSQL), it's defined in the obvious place.