APIs and API Design with Python

Now, imagine you are a software engineer at Skyscanner who is responsible for developing an API. Throughout this book, you will be our API engineering intern. We will guide you, step by step, through the process of developing a RESTful API project that can serve the users of your system. Django is a Python-based REST framework used frequently by developers to build extremely fast and reliable APIs.

You should have a section for each resource that describes which fields, such as id or title, it accepts. Each section should have an example in the form of a sample HTTP request or block of code. Another python api design way to plan for your API’s future is to add a version number to the path. This way, applications and scripts built using the old version of your API won’t cease to function after your upgrade.

Python REST APIs With Flask, Connexion, and SQLAlchemy

This presents a problem once clients can delete items from the datastore. Python is a powerful, object-based, high-level programming language with dynamic typing and binding. Due to its flexibility and power, developers often employ certain rules, or Python design patterns.

  • To install the Python packages, we can also run the pip install -r requirements.txt command in Terminal.
  • Service-agnostic concepts such as logging, HTTP communication, and error handling should be consistent.
  • What I like the most in Python is that using it teaches us to use best practices.
  • In fact, patterns should be considered in the context of any given programming language.

Examples in the book are implemented in Python so a fair grasp of basic Python concepts is expected. Proficiency in any programming languages such as Java or JavaScript is sufficient. You can view the entirety of the app inthe example prog_lang_app.txt file. Flask includes many specialized options in addition to the basics covered in this guide. Refer toFlask’s official documentation to learn how to enhance the API created in this tutorial. Create the List Endpoint in FlaskRESTful services typically have two endpoints used to retrieve resources.

Create the Detail Endpoint in Flask

But we have no problem with that; we just need to define the __call__ method. Decorators are really nice, and we already have them integrated into the language. What I like the most in Python is that using it teaches us to use best practices.