Advantages to using URLField over TextField?

Question

As I understand it you should always use a TextField for a variable length string when your using a PostgreSQL database because the speed difference between a TextField and a CharField is negligible with PostgreSQL. I'm relativly new to Django, and was considering using a TextField for variable length urls in my database. I was wondering if there are any advantages to using the URLField? Would it be considered bad form to use a TextField rather than a URLField for urls?

okm · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-09T04:48:05.997

72

URLField is actually CharField w/ supporting of Regexp-based URL pattern checking and a online validator(which was replaced by a RegEx based validator), you could use TextField if you don't care length-limitation of URL

from django.core.validators import URLValidator

# in model
field = models.TextField(validators=[URLValidator()])

Furthermore, using of CharField or TextField depends on whether you want max-length constraint on the field, and which element type is more suitable for editing: textarea or input. On PostgreSQL side, there is no significant difference.

edited Feb 09 '18 at 04:48

answered Apr 07 '12 at 06:20

okm

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For the record, [IE can't load URLs longer than about 2,000 chars](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maximum-length-of-a-url-in-different-browsers), so you could just set `max_length` to 2000 on a `URLField` and call it a day. – mlissner May 26 '15 at 17:55
Any reference to the deprecation of URLField ? – pravin Feb 07 '18 at 19:20
2

@pravin It is not the URLField but its previous validator been deprecated. The validator was accessing the URL online to verify, for now it is replaced by a regex validator to check the validation of URL format. – okm Feb 09 '18 at 04:49
1

URLField default to max_length of 200, unless you specify some other value – Vaibhav Vishal Jan 03 '19 at 07:00

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 12 '13 at 04:40

Try this class:

class LongURLField(TextField):
    description = 'Long URL'

    def __init__(self, verbose_name=None, name=None, **kwargs):
        TextField.__init__(self, verbose_name, name, **kwargs)
        self.validators.append(validators.URLValidator())

    def formfield(self, **kwargs):
        # As with TextField, this will cause URL validation to be performed
        # twice.
        defaults = {
            'form_class': forms.URLField,
        }
        defaults.update(kwargs)
        return super(LongURLField, self).formfield(**defaults)

set max_length to 2000 and you have the perfect field :) – gabn88 Feb 06 '17 at 19:41 — gabn88, Feb 06 '17 at 19:41

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 13 '15 at 19:04

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/fields/#urlfield Of course you can use CharField/TextField but handling user input and be sure whatever user enters is up-to you.

From the source code:

# As with CharField, this will cause URL validation to be performed

If you see the URLField source code you will find it's actually a CharField with URL validator.

Also there is other ready to use fields such as EmailField, ImageField, *Field!

Advantages to using URLField over TextField?

3 Answers3

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