User Models

Practice 1

Objective:
Extending the User Model (User Profile)

In this practice, we'll demonstrate how to extend the built-in user model by making a new UserProfile model that has a One-To-One relationship with the built-in user model.

1. Create a new app

As the UserProfile model is not related to any of the models under the employee_learning app, it is better to create a new app by running the startapp command. We use 'users' as an app name this time.

python manage.py startapp user_profile

2. Add the app in settings.py

As the app is new, add it under INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
      :
    'user_profile',
      :
]

3. Add the UserProfile model in models.py

Open models.py under the new app, and add the code below.

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

class UserProfile (models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    mobile = models.CharField(max_length=15, blank=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.user.username

4. Edit admin.py

To add the UserProfile model to the admin page, edit the admin.py file under the users directory.

from django.contrib import admin

from .models import UserProfile

admin.site.register(UserProfile)

5. Check the results

Run the makemigrations and migrate commands as we have created a new model. To see the outcome, execute the runserver command.

python manage.py makemigrations user_profile 
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

Go to localhost:8000/admin. You can see that the UserProfile model is registered under the new app. Using the same approach, you can extend the user model further.

Practice 2

Objective:
Substituting the User Model

In this practice, we'll demonstrate how to develop a custom user model by inheriting AbstractUser. As we have migrated the user model to the employee learning app, we'll generate a new project for this practice.

1. Start a new project

To create a new project, open a new window in VS Code. Create a new folder named 'custom_user', and open Terminal in VS Code.
Then, run the following commands to create a virtual environment and prepare for Django installation.

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

touch requirements.txt

Edit the requirements.txt file in VS Code by adding Django with version information.

Django==4.1.7

Execute pip to install Django and run the startproject command.

python -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt
django-admin startproject config .

Run the runserver command.

python manage.py runserver

Check localhost:8000. If you can see the following screen, your project start is successful.

2. Create a new app and register it

Create a new app named 'user_model' for practice purposes.

python manage.py startapp user_model

Add the app in settings.py.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
      :
    'user_model',
]

3. Create a custom user model

Create the CustomUser model in models.py. Add the' mobile' field to compare with the previous practice later.

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser

class CustomUser(AbstractUser):

    class Meta(AbstractUser.Meta):
        db_table = 'custom_user'

    mobile = models.CharField(max_length=15, blank=True)

4. Register the custom user model in settings.py

This is an important step. The Django built-in user model is currently used for the Django user authentication system (e.g., logging in to the Django admin page). By adding this setting, the custom model will be used for the authentication system.

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'user_model.CustomUser'

5. Edit admin.py

To add the CustomUser model to the admin page, edit the admin.py file under the user_model directory.

from django.contrib import admin

from .models import CustomUser

admin.site.register(CustomUser)

6. Check the results

Run the makemigrations and migrate commands as we created a new model. As this is a new project, run the createsuperuser command as well. Then, run the runserver command.

python manage.py makemigrations users 
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser
python manage.py runserver

Go to localhost:8000/admin. You can see that the custom user model is registered under USER_MODEL and that the mobile field has been added.