How to Create a basic API using Django Rest Framework ?
Django REST Framework is a wrapper over default Django Framework, basically used to create APIs of various kinds. There are three stages before creating a API through REST framework, Converting a Model’s data to JSON/XML format (Serialization), Rendering this data to the view, Creating a URL for mapping to the viewset.
This article revolves around how to create a basic API using Django REST Framework. It assumes you are familiar with Django basics – Django tutorial. Also, installation of Django REST Framework. Assuming you have created a project named geeksforgeeks with Django, let’s initiate Django REST Framework.
Steps
Add rest_framework to INSTALLED_APPS
To initialize REST Framework in your project, go to settings.py, and in INSTALLED_APPS add ‘rest_framework’ at the bottom.
Python3
# Application definitionINSTALLED_APPS = [ 'django.contrib.admin', 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', 'django.contrib.sessions', 'django.contrib.messages', 'django.contrib.staticfiles', 'rest_framework',] |
Create a app and model
Now, let’s create a app using command,
python manage.py startapp apis
A folder with name apis would have been registered by now. let’s add this app to INSTALLED_APPS and urls.py also.
In, settings.py,
Python3
# Application definitionINSTALLED_APPS = [ 'django.contrib.admin', 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', 'django.contrib.sessions', 'django.contrib.messages', 'django.contrib.staticfiles', 'rest_framework', 'apis',] |
Now, add apis urls in urls.py. In geeksforgeeks.urls.py,
Python3
from django.contrib import admin# include necessary librariesfrom django.urls import path, includeurlpatterns = [ path('admin/', admin.site.urls), # add apis urls path('', include("apis.urls"))] |
Create a model
To demonstrate, creating and using an API, let’s create a model named “GeeksModel”. In apis/models.py
Python3
from django.db import modelsclass GeeksModel(models.Model): title = models.CharField(max_length = 200) description = models.TextField() def __str__(self): return self.title |
now our app is ready, let’s serialize the data and create views from the same.
Serialization
Serializers allow complex data such as querysets and model instances to be converted to native Python datatypes that can then be easily rendered into JSON, XML or other content types. Serializers also provide deserialization, allowing parsed data to be converted back into complex types, after first validating the incoming data. Let’s start creating a serializer, in file apis/serializers.py,
Python3
# import serializer from rest_frameworkfrom rest_framework import serializers# import model from models.pyfrom .models import GeeksModel# Create a model serializerclass GeeksSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer): # specify model and fields class Meta: model = GeeksModel fields = ('title', 'description') |
Creating a viewset
To render data into frontend, and handle requests from user, we need to create a view. In Django REST Framework, we call these as viewsets, so let’s create a view in apis/views.py,
Python3
# import viewsetsfrom rest_framework import viewsets# import local datafrom .serializers import GeeksSerializerfrom .models import GeeksModel# create a viewsetclass GeeksViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet): # define queryset queryset = GeeksModel.objects.all() # specify serializer to be used serializer_class = GeeksSerializer |
Define URLs of API
Specify the url path of APIs to be accessed, In apis/urls.py,
Python3
# basic URL Configurationsfrom django.urls import include, path# import routersfrom rest_framework import routers# import everything from viewsfrom .views import *# define the routerrouter = routers.DefaultRouter()# define the router path and viewset to be usedrouter.register(r'geeks', GeeksViewSet)# specify URL Path for rest_frameworkurlpatterns = [ path('', include(router.urls)), path('api-auth/', include('rest_framework.urls'))] |
After everything is successfully ready, let’s run some commands to activate the server.
Run server and check API
Run following commands to create the database, and run server,
python manage.py makemigrations python manage.py migrate python manage.py runserver
Now visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/geeks/,
To check the code for the project, click here
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