.. _glossary:

========

Glossary

========

.. glossary::

    field

        An attribute on a :term:`model`; a given field usually maps directly to

        a single database column.

        See :doc:`/topics/db/models`.

    generic view

        A higher-order :term:`view` function that provides an abstract/generic

        implementation of a common idiom or pattern found in view development.

        See :doc:`/ref/generic-views`.

    model

        Models store your application's data.

        See :doc:`/topics/db/models`.

    MTV

        See :ref:`mtv`.

    MVC

        `Model-view-controller`__; a software pattern. Django :ref:`follows MVC

        to some extent <mtv>`.

        __ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller

    project

        A Python package -- i.e. a directory of code -- that contains all the

        settings for an instance of Django. This would include database

        configuration, Django-specific options and application-specific

        settings.

    property

        Also known as "managed attributes", and a feature of Python since

        version 2.2. From `the property documentation`__:

            Properties are a neat way to implement attributes whose usage

            resembles attribute access, but whose implementation uses method

            calls. [...] You

            could only do this by overriding ``__getattr__`` and

            ``__setattr__``; but overriding ``__setattr__`` slows down all

            attribute assignments considerably, and overriding ``__getattr__``

            is always a bit tricky to get right. Properties let you do this

            painlessly, without having to override ``__getattr__`` or

            ``__setattr__``.

        __ http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.2/descrintro/#property

    queryset

        An object representing some set of rows to be fetched from the database.

        See :doc:`/topics/db/queries`.

    slug

        A short label for something, containing only letters, numbers,

        underscores or hyphens. They're generally used in URLs. For

        example, in a typical blog entry URL:

        .. parsed-literal::

            http://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2008/apr/12/**spring**/

        the last bit (``spring``) is the slug.

    template

        A chunk of text that acts as formatting for representing data. A

        template helps to abstract the presentation of data from the data

        itself.

        See :doc:`/topics/templates`.

    view

        A function responsible for rending a page.