How do Django models work?

Question

So I can create Django model like this:

from django.db import models

class Something(models.Model):
    title = models.TextField(max_length=200)

and I can work with it like this:

thing = Something()
#set title
thing.title = "First thing"
#get title
thing.title

All works as it should but I'd like to understand HOW it works.

title = models.TextField(max_length=200)

in non-Django Python code above line defines class variable title of type models.TextField and I could access it also like this: thing.__class__.title(link)

But in Django when I create instance of Something I suddenly have a title attribute where I can get/set text. And cannot access it with thing.__class__.title So clearly when doing thing.title I'm not accessing class variable "title" but some generated attribute/property, or?

I know that fields ended up in thing._meta.fields but how? What's going on and how?

1, Does Django create property "title" behind the scenes?

2, What happened to class variable "title"?

How do Django models work?

2 Answers