Our task is to build a simple Django application that counts the number of words in a given text. This is a great beginner project if you have some basic knowledge of Django.
Refer to the below article to know about basics of Django.
Step 1: Create the Word Counting Logic in Views
First, we create a function calledcounterinviews.py which will handle the logic for counting words:
Pythonfromdjango.shortcutsimportrenderdefcounter(request):ifrequest.method=='POST':text=request.POST['texttocount']iftext!='':word=len(text.split())i=Truereturnrender(request,'counter.html',{'word':word,'text':text,'i':i,'on':'active'})else:returnrender(request,'counter.html',{'on':'active'})else:returnrender(request,'counter.html',{'on':'active'}) Explanation:
- When the user submits text via POST, we check if the input is not empty.
- We then split the text by spaces and count the resulting words.
- If successful, we pass the word count and original text back to the template.
- On GET requests or empty input, we simply render the form without results.
Step 2: Configure URL Patterns
In your app'surls.py, map the URL/counter to yourcounterview:
Pythonfromdjango.urlsimportpathfrom.importviewsfromdjango.confimportsettingsfromdjango.conf.urls.staticimportstaticurlpatterns=[path('counter',views.counter,name='counter'),]Then include your app URLs in the main projecturls.py:
Pythonfromdjango.contribimportadminfromdjango.urlsimportpath,includefromdjango.views.genericimportRedirectViewurlpatterns=[path('admin/',admin.site.urls),path('',RedirectView.as_view(url='counter',permanent=False)),# Redirect root to /counterpath('',include('yourappname.urls')),# Replace yourappname with your actual app name]Step 3: Create the HTML Template
Create a file calledcounter.html inside your app’s templates folder and add the following code:
HTML{% if i %}<divclass="mb-2"style="border-style: groove; border-radius: 10px;"><divclass="card-header"><pstyle="font-size: 20px;">{{ word }} Word{{ word|pluralize }} in the text</p></div></div>{% endif %}<divclass="col-12 pb-3"style="background-color: #c2d6d6; border: 2px groove; border-radius: 10px;"><formaction="counter"method="POST"> {% csrf_token %}<divclass="form-group"><labelfor="text1">Paste your text here</label><textareaname="texttocount"id="text1"rows="8"style="background-color: #f0f5f5;"class="form-control"placeholder="Enter text to count words">{{ text }}</textarea></div><divclass="text-center"><!-- Ads or other content can go here --></div><divclass="form-group text-center"><buttontype="submit"class="btn btn-primary w-25">Run Counter</button></div></form></div>Notes:
- The{% csrf_token %} tag is essential for POST requests to pass Django’s CSRF protection.
- We conditionally display the word count only when the counting process has succeeded (i is true).
- {{ word|pluralize }}adds an “s” when the word count is more than one for proper grammar.
Step 4: Run Your Application
Make sure your Django server is running:
python manage.py runserver
Output:
