Building A REST API Using Django Rest Framework

Twitter @PabloVallejo_

GitHub /PabloVallejo

Gillie

Fun

What is a Web API?

"Programmatic interface to a defined request-response message system"

Benefits of an API

Abstract the way data is managed

Standardize data access

Access data from multiple devices

Separate presentation from logic

Data Types

JSON

{
  "title": "First Todo",
  "completed": "false"
}

XML

<title>First Todo</title>
<completed>false</completed>

Architectures

SOAP

XML Based. Standardized responses.

REST

Representation State Transfer

What is REST?

Representation State Transfer

GET Retrieve data

POST Create a resource

PUT Update a resource

DELETE Delete a resource

Get all users

GET /users/

Create a new user

POST /users/

Update a user

PUT /users/1

Delete a user

DELETE /users/1

The Framework

Serializers

Prepare Django data to be returned in a HTTP response.

from rest_framework import serializers
from task.models import Task

class TaskSerializer( serializers.ModelSerializer ):
    """
    Serializer to parse Task data
    """

    class Meta:
		model = Task
		fields = ( 'title', 'completed', 'id' )

Views
Useful classes to remove boilerplate

class TaskMixin(object):
    """
    Mixin to inherit from.
    Here we're setting the query set and the serializer
    """
    queryset = Task.objects.all()
    serializer_class = TaskSerializer

class TaskList(TaskMixin, ListCreateAPIView):
    """
    Return a list of all the tasks, or
    create new ones
    """
    pass

class TaskDetail(TaskMixin, RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView):
    """
    Return a specific task, update it, or delete it.
    """
    pass