Overview

Django 1.2, released on May 17, 2010, brings multi-database support and strengthens CSRF protection. This version allows reading and writing to multiple databases within the same project, a highly requested community feature.

Key Features

Multi-database support

Django 1.2 allows configuring and using multiple databases simultaneously. A database router directs reads and writes to the correct database based on the model or application.

python 
# settings.py
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'main_app',
    },
    'analytics': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'analytics_app',
    },
}

# Database router
class AnalyticsRouter:
    def db_for_read(self, model, **hints):
        if model._meta.app_label == 'analytics':
            return 'analytics'
        return 'default'

    def db_for_write(self, model, **hints):
        if model._meta.app_label == 'analytics':
            return 'analytics'
        return 'default'

# Explicit query on a specific database
stats = Visit.objects.using('analytics').filter(page='/home/').count()

CSRF protection improvements

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) protection is now enabled by default via a middleware. The {% csrf_token %} template tag automatically generates the protection token.

python 
# In the HTML template
# <form method="post">
#     {% csrf_token %}
#     <input type="text" name="title">
#     <button type="submit">Submit</button>
# </form>

# In the view: verification is automatic
from django.shortcuts import render, redirect

def create_article(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        # The CSRF middleware has already verified the token
        title = request.POST['title']
        Article.objects.create(title=title, author=request.user)
        return redirect('article_list')
    return render(request, 'blog/create.html')

Sources