DateField - Django Models

DateField is a field that stores date, represented in Python by a datetime.date instance. As the name suggests, this field is used to store an object of date created in python. The default form widget for this field is a TextInput. The admin can add a JavaScript calendar and a shortcut for “Today” explicitly.

Syntax

field_name = models.DateField(**options)

Optional Arguments for DateField

1. DateField.auto_now

• Automatically sets the field to the current date every time the model instance is saved.
• Useful for tracking last-modified timestamps.
• This updates only when Model.save() is called (not with QuerySet.update()).
• Example:

updated_at = models.DateField(auto_now=True)

2. DateField.auto_now_add

• Automatically sets the field to the current date only when the model instance is first created.
• Useful for creation timestamps.
• The value cannot be overridden once set.
• Example:

created_at = models.DateField(auto_now_add=True)

3. default

• You can specify a default date using a callable, like date.today (from Python’s datetime module).
• This allows you to set a modifiable default date instead of using auto_now_add.
• Example:

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

Example: Creating a Model with DateField

Illustration of DateField using an Example. Consider a project named geeksforgeeks having an app named geeks. 

Refer to the following articles to check how to create a project and an app in Django. 

• How to Create a Basic Project using MVT in Django?
• How to Create an App in Django ?

1. Define the model in geeks/models.py:

from django.db import models
from django.db.models import Model

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

2. Add the geeks app to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'geeks',
]

3. Run migrations:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

A new folder named migrations would be created in geeks directory with a file named 0001_initial.py.

Migration File Example

from django.db import migrations, models

class Migration(migrations.Migration):

    initial = True

    dependencies = [
    ]

    operations = [
        migrations.CreateModel(
            name ='GeeksModel',
            fields =[
                ('id', 
                  models.AutoField(
                  auto_created = True,
                  primary_key = True,
                  serialize = False, 
                  verbose_name ='ID'
                )),
                ('geeks_field', models.DateField()),
            ],
        ),
    ]

Using DateField in Code

You can create a model instance by assigning a Python datetime.date object to your DateField.

Example:

from geeks.models import GeeksModel
import datetime

d = datetime.date(1997, 10, 19)

geek_object = GeeksModel.objects.create(geeks_field = d)
geek_object.save() 

Now let's check it in admin server. We have created an instance of GeeksModel. 

Field Options

Field Options are the arguments given to each field for applying some constraint or imparting a particular characteristic to a particular Field. For example, adding an argument null = True to DateField will enable it to store empty values for that table in a relational database. 
Here are the field options and attributes that a DateField can use.