I have been struggling with choosing a methodology for creating a RESTful API with Django. None of the approaches I've tried seem to be the "silver" bullet. WAPI from http://fi.am is probably the closest to what I would like to accomplish, however I am not sure if it is acceptable in a true RESTful API to have parameters that are resource identifiers be in the querystring instead of in a "clean" URL format. Any suggestions for modifying WAPIs RestBinding.PATTERN to "clean" up the URLs? Another option I've explored is Django-Rest-Interface. However this framework seems to violate one of the most important pieces I need, and that is to include the full resource URL for references to other resources (see http://jacobian.org/writing/rest-worst-practices/ Improper Use of Links). The final option is to use django-multiresponse and basically do it the long way.
Please offer me your best advice, especially people that have dealt with this decision.
For Django, besides tastypie and piston, django-rest-framework is a promising one worth mentioning. I've already migrated one of my projects on it smoothly.
Django REST framework is a lightweight REST framework for Django, that
aims to make it easy to build well-connected, self-describing RESTful
Web APIs.
Quick example:
from django.conf.urls.defaults import patterns, url
from djangorestframework.resources import ModelResource
from djangorestframework.views import ListOrCreateModelView, InstanceModelView
from myapp.models import MyModel
class MyResource(ModelResource):
model = MyModel
urlpatterns = patterns('',
url(r'^$', ListOrCreateModelView.as_view(resource=MyResource)),
url(r'^(?P<pk>[^/]+)/$', InstanceModelView.as_view(resource=MyResource)),
)
Take the example from the official site, all above codes provide api, self explained documentation (like soap based webservice) and even sandboxing for testing. Very convenient.
Links:
http://django-rest-framework.org/
I believe the recently released django-piston is now the best solution for creating a proper REST interface in Django. django-piston
Note: django-piston seems to no longer be maintained (see comments below)
django-tastypie is a good way to do it, their slogan: "Creating delicious APIs for Django apps since 2010" is pretty comforting ;)
You could take look at django-dynamicresponse, which is a lightweight framework for adding REST API with JSON to your Django applications.
It requires minimal changes to add API support to existing Django apps, and makes it straight-forward to build-in API from the start in new projects.
Basically, it includes middleware support for parsing JSON into request.POST, in addition to serializing the returned context to JSON or rendering a template/redirecting conditionally based on the request type.
This approach differs from other frameworks (such as django-piston) in that you do not need to create separate handlers for API requests. You can also reuse your existing view logic, and keep using form validation etc. like normal views.
I don't know if this project can be useful for you, but sending a link can hardly hurt. Take a look at django-apibuilder , available from http://opensource.washingtontimes.com/projects/django-apibuilder/ . Perhaps it can be useful?
/Jesper
Have a look at this RestifyDjango.
Somewhat related are Django XML-RPC and JSON-RPC.
https://github.com/RueLaLa/savory-pie
Savory Pie is a REST framework that supports django.
I would suggest you look into Django Rest Framework (DRF), play around with this and see if it suits your requirements. The reason I recommend DRF is because it makes making the API views really simple with the use of GenericAPIView classes, Mixin Classes and Mixed in Generic views. You can easily make use of tried and tested design patterns for making your API endpoints as well as keeping your code base neat and concise. You also DRY when writing your code which is always great. Your API views are literally 2-3 lines long.
You can checkout this tutorial http://programmathics.com/programming/python/django-rest-framework-setup/ that begins from setting up your environment to going through the different ways to make your RESTful API using the django rest framework.
Disclaimer: I am the creator of that website.
Related
What is the proper way to post json to Django? I have tried to use views, but I am not certain how to handle csrf. Is there another way to bypass views and simply accept a post of json?
Views are what handle the post data. There is no concept of "bypass views" because that is where the work of processing a request is done.
This is probably what your are looking for:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/csrf/#ajax
This shows you how to handle csrf tokens with ajax (namely by using cookies).
I also might suggest you slow down and try to work through the tutorial found here:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/
You will likely have an easier time with django if you undertstand how the pieces (Models, Views, Templates, urls, Forms, etc) fit together.
Since you've added that these are API calls the simplest thing to do would be to mark these views as csrf_exempt. Additionally, as you might guess creating an API from models is a common task (I'm assuming that your API maps to models as that's the common case and you haven't specified) you may want to not reinvent the wheel and instead use piston or tastypie to make this easier on you: http://djangopackages.com/grids/g/api/
Use the #csrf_exempt decorator on any API views.
I'm in a process of migrating Rails project into Django. Rails project was built using restful routes and it never touches the database. Instead, it simply redirects to different methods which all call an external service with the specified action method. Now, I have found a number of frameworks for django that provide restful capability plus a bunch of bells and whistles, but it's an overkill for my current case.
As an alternative, I can ignore action method in urls.py by simply providing a regex to validate urls and then parse the request method in views.py, redirecting to the appropriate method. Is this a way to go or are there any other approaches that I can look at?
Class based views look like the idiomatic way to organize restful view functions by request method.
Django snippets has several simple example implementations.
I started building a Django app, but this probably applies to other frameworks as well. In Backbone.js methods that call the server (fetch(), create(), destroy(), etc.), should you be using a proper RESTful API such as one provided by Tastypie or Django-Piston? I've founded it easier and more flexible to just construct the JSON in my Django Views, which are mapped to some URLs that Backbone.js can use. Then again, I'm probably not leveraging Tastypie/Django-Piston functionality to the fullest.
I'm not ready to make a full-fledged RESTful API for my app yet. I simply would like to use some of the AJAXy functionality that Backbone.js supports.
Pros/Cons of doing this?
Remember, REST does not equal JSON. If I require your representation in text/html, you should be able to provide me with that, or else throw a 415.
A better solution, then you are currently using, is to use the middleware functionality that Django provides. Whatever your view replies, use Djangos middleware functionality for the response to encode into JSON, XML or whatever.
I personally prefer defining my own ajax views and json objects. Using some already apis developed may be or may not be of much use. Some don't exactly fulfill the requirements some may have features which are redundant (And I don't like a code to be present which is not being used).
Also writing ajax functionality is not that difficult either. The inbuilt serializers / request.is_ajax features are there for your help.
Some examples for ajax implementation with django/jquery: http://webcloud.se/log/AJAX-in-Django-with-jQuery/ (You most probably have seen it already)
I'm willing to build a restful service using Django, I'm coming form RoR background and facing some problems that could be defined using the following questions:
What package do you recommend to use to have RESTful interfaces?
Is there a way to make nested resources like a post HTTP request to /posts/post_id/comments that adds a new comment ?
Is there a way to add some extra actions out of the CRUD set, like having extra method called notify on Post resource that works on post HTTP request.
Cheers,
1) Check out django piston.
2) Yes, you set it up in your urls list.
3) Yes, this is straightforward to do in your view.
Django Piston:
http://bitbucket.org/jespern/django-piston/wiki/Home
I would say that you can do a lot just by implementing your own views that present theirselfs in a RESTful way.
But, there is a project called piston that seems to be exactly what you're looking for: "A mini-framework for Django for creating RESTful APIs".
Im still fairly new to Django, so please explain things with that in
mind.
I'm trying to create three websites using 2 subdomains and 1 domain:
for the blog, blog.mysite.com
for the forums, forums.mysite.com
for the custom web app, mysite.com
When building the custom web app, I used contrib.auth to make use of
the built-in django provided user models and functionality.
For the forums, I am planning on using SNAPboard (http://
code.google.com/p/snapboard/) with minimal, if any, modifications. On
initial inspection, it looks like it also uses contrib.auth users.
For the blog, I will probably be rolling my own lightweight blogging
app (since that seems to be the Django way and, also, b/c as Bennet
mentions, there is no killer Django Blog app)
Currently, I am considering two features that require some integration
between the three sites. First, I want to have the users of the custom
web app to use the same account to also log into the forums. Second, I
also (but I haven't figured out how I'm going to do this yet) would
like my blog posts to automatically become a topic for discussion in
the forums (this is just an idea I had, I might end up dropping it).
Ok, so to my questions:
1) Again, I'm new to Django, but this integration leads me to believe
the three websites need to be all under one project. Is this correct?
2) How would I accomplish the url structure for the websites that I
described above (blog.mysite.com, etc)? In the project's urls.py, I
don't know how to filter off of subdomains. If it was mysite.com/
forums/, that would be easy, but I don't know how to to catch
forums.mysite.com and forward it to the appropriate Django app.
3) Would I have to make use of the django.contrib.sites framework? I
don't understand that framework fully, but it seems like it's used
when two different websites are using the same django app in the
background. Whereas my three websites are all using different django
apps, but I want them to share a little bit of data.
Thanks for your help.
1) Yes, it's only true way for that
2) Use middleware
3) No, you don't need it.