Django - Upstash Documentation

Introduction

In this quickstart tutorial, we will demonstrate how to use Django with Upstash Redis to build a simple web application that increments a counter every time the homepage is accessed.

Environment Setup

First, install Django and the Upstash Redis client for Python:

pip install django
pip install upstash-redis

Database Setup

Create a Redis database using the Upstash Console or Upstash CLI and export the UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL and UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN to your environment:

export UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL=<YOUR_URL>
export UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN=<YOUR_TOKEN>

You can also use python-dotenv to load environment variables from your .env file.

Project Setup

Create a new Django project:

django-admin startproject myproject
cd myproject
python manage.py startapp myapp

In myproject/settings.py, add your new app (myapp) to the INSTALLED_APPS list.

Application Setup

In myapp/views.py, add the following:

from django.http import HttpResponse
from upstash_redis import Redis

redis = Redis.from_env()

def index(request):
    count = redis.incr('counter')
    return HttpResponse(f'Page visited {count} times.')

In myproject/urls.py, connect the view to a URL pattern:

from django.urls import path
from myapp import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.index),
]

Running the Application

Run the development server:

python manage.py runserver

Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser, and the counter will increment with each page refresh.

Code Breakdown

Redis Setup: We use the Upstash Redis client to connect to our Redis database using the environment variables UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL and UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN. The Redis.from_env() method initializes this connection.
Increment Counter: In the index view, we increment the counter key each time the homepage is accessed. If the key doesn’t exist, Redis creates it and starts counting from 1.
Display the Count: The updated count is returned as an HTTP response each time the page is loaded.

​Introduction

​Environment Setup

​Database Setup

​Project Setup

​Application Setup

​Running the Application

​Code Breakdown