DateField - Django Models

DateField is a Django model field used to store date values only (without time).

• Represented in Python as a datetime.date object
• Stores only the date (year, month, day) in the database
• Uses TextInput as the default form widget
• In Django Admin, it includes a JavaScript calendar widget and a shortcut for "Today".

Syntax

field_name = models.DateField(**options)

Optional Arguments for DateField

DateField provides useful options to manage date values automatically.

1. auto_now=True

Automatically sets the field to the current date every time the model instance is saved. Commonly used for last-modified dates.

Example:

updated_at = models.DateField(auto_now=True)

• Updates only when Model.save() is called.
• Does not update when using QuerySet.update() unless explicitly specified.
• The value cannot be manually overridden.

2. auto_now_add=True

Automatically sets the field to the current date only when the model instance is first created. Commonly used for creation dates.

Example:

created_at = models.DateField(auto_now_add=True)

• The value is set only once.
• The value cannot be overridden during object creation.
• Suitable for recording when an object was created.

3. Using default

If the field needs to remain editable or modifiable, use default instead of auto_now_add. A default date can be specified using a callable such as date.today from Python’s datetime module.

Example:

from datetime import date
created_at = models.DateField(default=date.today)

This approach allows the date to be modified later if needed.

Note: The options auto_now_add, auto_now, and default are mutually exclusive. Any combination of these options will result in an error.

Creating a Model with DateField

Consider a project named geeksforgeeks having an app named geeks.

In models.py:

from django.db import models

class GeeksModel(models.Model):
    geeks_field = models.DateField()

    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.geeks_field)

After running makemigrations and migrate, Django creates a Date column to store date values only.

Opening Django Shell

Validation can be tested interactively by opening the Django shell:

python manage.py shell

Create a model instance by assigning a Python datetime.date object:

from geeks.models import GeeksModel
from datetime import date

GeeksModel.objects.create(
geeks_field=date.today()
)

Stored objects can be retrieved using:

GeeksModel.objects.all()

This confirms that the DateField successfully stores datetime.date values in the database.

Validation Using Django Admin

Register the Model (geeks/admin.py):

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import GeeksModel

admin.site.register(GeeksModel)

Create a Superuser: Enter username, email, and password when prompted.

python manage.py createsuperuser

Run the Server:

python manage.py runserver

Visit: http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/ and log in using the superuser credentials, then navigate to the Geeks models section.

New instances can be added through this interface, and saved records can be viewed directly in the admin panel.

Field Options

Field options are arguments provided to a model field to apply constraints or define specific characteristics for that field.Here are the field options and attributes that a DateField can use. For example, adding the argument null=True to a DateField allows the corresponding database column to store NULL values in a relational database.

The following are the field options and attributes that a DateField supports.