Building RESTFul APIs with Django REST framework

Preparation

1. Install Python

2. Install Django

   pip install django

   If you are using Python 3.0+ please input the following command

   pip3 install django

3. Install Django-REST-framework

   pip install djangorestframework (change to pip3 if you are using Python 3.0+)

Creating an API with Django-rest-framework

1. Create a Django project and an app. I created it with a name django-tutorial and music

   $ django-admin startproject django-tutorial
   $ cd django-tutorial
   $ python manage.py startapp music
   

2. Add rest_framework and the app name to the installed apps in settings.py

    INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'rest_framework',
    'music',
    ...
    )
   

3. Create Model and schema for database. (Django using SQLite as default, you can change other database you prefered in setting.py)

   in music/models.py

    from django.db import models
   
    # Create your models here.
    class Music(models.Model):
        song = models.TextField()
        singer = models.TextField()
        last_modify_date = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
        created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
        class Meta:
            db_table = "music"
   

4. Create database in SQLite (change to python3 if you are using Python 3.0+)

    python manage.py makemigrations
    python manage.py migrate
   

5. Create a music/serializers.py which should look like the below way.

    from rest_framework import serializers
    from musics.models import Music
    class MusicSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
        class Meta:
            model = Music
            fields = ('id', 'song', 'singer', 'last_modify_date', 'created')
   

6. Create a music/view.py and enable CRUD

    from musics.models import Music
    from musics.serializers import MusicSerializer
    from rest_framework import viewsets
   
    # Create your views here.
    class MusicViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
        queryset = Music.objects.all()
        serializer_class = MusicSerializer
   

7. Update the root urls.py

    from django.conf.urls import url, include
    from django.contrib import admin
    from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter
    from musics import views
   
    router = DefaultRouter()
    router.register(r'music', views.MusicViewSet)
   
    urlpatterns = [
            url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
            url(r'^api/', include(router.urls))
    ]
   

8. Finally start server, the default port is 8000 (change to python3 if you are using Python 3.0+)

    python manage.py runserver [port]
   

Let’s test our API now

• Create new music

  POST: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/music/

  BODY:

    {
        singer:
        song:
    }
  

• Get all music info

  GET: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/music/

• Update info for specify music (PATCH: update part of info)

  PUT: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/music/{id}

  BODY:

    {
        singer:
        song:
    }
  

• Delete specify music

  DELETE: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/music/{id}