This Django API provides endpoints for a social media platform that allows users to create posts, follow other users, and comment on posts.

• Python 3.7 or higher
• Django 3.2 or higher
• Django REST framework

Clone the repository:

$ git clone <repository-url>
$ cd social-media-api

Create and activate a virtual environment:

$ python3 -m venv env
$ source env/bin/activate

Install the dependencies:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Set up the database:

$ python manage.py migrate

Create a superuser:

$ python manage.py createsuperuser

Run the development server:

$ python manage.py runserver

The API should now be running locally at http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/users.

GET /api/users/: Retrieve a list of all users.
GET /api/users/{id}/: Retrieve details of a specific user.
POST /api/users/{id}/follow/{id}: Set the first user as a follower of the second user.
POST /api/users/: Create a new user.
GET /api/posts/: Retrieve a list of all posts with pagination and filters.
GET /api/posts/{id}/: Retrieve details of a specific post with its last three comments included.
POST /api/posts/: Create a new post.
GET /api/posts/{id}/comments/: Retrieve all comments for a specific post.
POST /api/posts/{id}/comments/: Add a new comment to a post.

Note: All endpoints require authentication using token-based authentication.

Token-based authentication is used to authenticate API requests. To authenticate, include the token in the request header.

Token "token-value" To obtain a token, you can use the Django shell or authenticate through a login endpoint.

To create a token using the Django shell, run the following command:

$ python manage.py drf_create_token <username>

output:
    python manage.py drf_create_token user1
    Generated token 7baa3db5c2f07f617c87616716e689ca7c6692a8 for user user1

Note: You can use Postman to authenticate through a create user endpoint. To do so, send a POST request to http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/users with the username, password and followers list (could be an empty list) in the request body. The response will include the token.

To run the unit tests for the API endpoints and ORM queries, use the following command:

$ python manage.py test

The project includes optimizations such as indexing and constraints on database fields to improve query performance. These optimizations aim to minimize the number of database hits and enhance overall performance.

Contributions are welcome! If you find any issues or have suggestions for improvements, please open an issue or submit a pull request.

This project is licensed under the MIT License.