How to accept form data and return it along with the results of some processing in Django RESTFramework? - django

Question

I am trying to understand Django RESTFramework. I am already familiar with Django. I want to create an endpoint that accepts some text data and processes it and returns it to the user along with the results of the processing (in text). I have completed a couple of tutorials on the topic but I still don't understand how it works. Here is an example from a working tutorial project. How can I edit it to achieve my goal? It all looks automagical.
# views.py
from rest_framework import generics
from .models import Snippet
from .serializers import SnippetSerializer
class SnippetList(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
queryset = Snippet.objects.all()
serializer_class = SnippetSerializer
​
class SnippetDetail(generics.RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView):
# Here I would like to accept form data and process it before returning it along with the
# results of the processing.
queryset = Snippet.objects.all()
serializer_class = SnippetSerializer

Answer 1

Okay, I think you are a newbie in Django rest and try to understand its flow so I can explain it with an example of a subscription plan.
First, create a model in models.py file
from django.db import models
class SubscriptionPlan(models.Model):
plan_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
monthly_price = models.IntegerField()
yearly_price = models.IntegerField()
Then create views in a view.py file like
from rest_framework.views import APIView
class SubscriptionCreateAPIView(APIView):
serializer_class = SubscriptionSerializer
def post(self, request):
serializer = self.serializer_class(data=request.data)
serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
serializer.save()
return Response(
{'message': 'Subscription plan created successfully.',
'data': serializer.data},
status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED
)
and then define a serializer for validation and fields in which we can verify which fields will be included in the request and response object.
serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import SubscriptionPlan
class SubscriptionSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
plan_name = serializers.CharField(max_length=255)
monthly_price = serializers.IntegerField(required=True)
yearly_price = serializers.IntegerField(required=True)
class Meta:
model = SubscriptionPlan
fields = (
'plan_name', 'monthly_price', 'yearly_price',
)
def create(self, validated_data):
return SubscriptionPlan.objects.create(**validated_data)
Now add urls in src/subsciption_module/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from .views import SubscriptionCreateAPIView
app_name = 'subscription_plan'
urlpatterns = [
path('subscription_plan/', SubscriptionCreateAPIView.as_view()),
]
At the end include module url in root urls.py file where your main urls will be located. It will be the same directory which contains settings.py and wsgi.py files.
src/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include
urlpatterns = [
path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
path('api/v1/', include('src.subscription_plan.urls', namespace='subscription_plan')),
]
That's it. This is how flow works in django rest and you can process data and display data in this way. For more details you can refer django rest docs.

Answer 2

But this is not in any way different from what you do with plain Django. Your SnippetDetail view is just a class-based view, and like any class-based view if you want to do anything specific you override the relevant method. In your case, you probably want to override update() to do your custom logic when receiving a PUT request to update data.