A minimal implementation of REST API using Django REST framework. This is a demonstrative project to understand the implementation of following features in RESTFull web services:

• Django project configuration for installed apps, database, authentication, testing etc.
• Creating MSV (Models, Serializers, Views) as per DRF API guidelines.
• Common customization for django admin interface and urls.
• User request Authentication using Token Authentication and Permission Policy.
• Customizable Pagination which allows you to split large result sets into individual pages.
• Test Driven Development.

• Python==3.6.9
• Django==3.0.4
• djangorestframework==3.11.0
• django-nose==1.4.6

pip install -r requirements.txt

We need to do following changes in reviewapp/settings.py in order to enable token authentication. First add restframework.authtoken to your INSTALLED_APPS. Second add the TokenAuthentication to REST_FRAMEWORK

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # Django Apps
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',

    # Third party Apps
    'rest_framework',
    'rest_framework.authtoken',  # here
    'django_nose',

    # Local Apps
    'review',
    'user',
]

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    ...
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
    ),
    ...
}

The simplest ways we can get a token are -

python manage.py drf_create_token tyrian

Or by using httpie

http post http://127.0.0.1:8000/get-token/ username=kailas password=kailas123

Pagination allows you to control how many objects per page to be returned. To enable it add the following lines to REST_FRAMEWORK dictionary in reviewapp/settings.py

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    ...
    'DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS': 'rest_framework.pagination.PageNumberPagination',
    'PAGE_SIZE': 10
    ...
}

1. Verification of user registration with invalid password.
2. Verification of user registration with valid data.
3. Verification of user registration with unique username validation.
4. User login without password authentication.
5. User logn with password authentication.
6. User login with valid credentials.
7. Endpoint validation
8. Create institute.
9. List institutes.
10. Retrieve an institutes with given id.
11. Update an institute.
12. Partial update of an institute.
13. Delete an institute with given id.

You can set the test request default format by adding a TEST_REQUEST_DEFAULT_FORMAT key in REST_FRAMEWORK cofig. dictionary in your reviewapp/settings.py

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    ...
    'TEST_REQUEST_DEFAULT_FORMAT': 'json'
    ...
}

python manage.py test

There are multiple ways to call the API, such as postman, curl, httpie.

• Install the postman

sudo snap install postman

• Start the django server

python manage.py runserver

• Select request type, Set headers and send request

• Install httpie using pip

pip install httpie

• Start the django server

python manage.py runserver

• Access API -

http http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/review/institute/2/ "Authorization: Token 39643b8bec57a7288ff4b68ce7199c9398ae7699"

• Response:

{
    "id": 2,
    "institute_name": "COEP",
    "address": "shivaji nagar pune",
    "pin_code": 411005,
    "office_mail": "[email protected]",
    "phone_number": null,
    "website": null,
    "institute_type": "GO", 
    "founded_in": null,
    "affiliated_to": null,
    "approved_by": null,
    "owner": 1
}

• Install curl

sudo apt install curl

• Start the django server

python manage.py runserver

• Access API using curl

curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/review/institute/ -H 'Authorization: Token 39643b8bec57a7288ff4b68ce7199c9398ae7699'

• Response

{"count":2,"next":null,"previous":null,"results":[{"id":2,"institute_name":"AISSMSIOIT","address":"shivaji nagar pune","pin_code":411005,"office_mail":"[email protected]","phone_number":null,"website":null,"institute_type":"GO","founded_in":null,"affiliated_to":null,"approved_by":null,"owner":1},{"id":4,"institute_name":"PICT","address":"pune","pin_code":null,"office_mail":null,"phone_number":null,"website":null,"institute_type":"GO","founded_in":null,"affiliated_to":null,"approved_by":null,"owner":1}]}

Note - Authorization token is required as we are using token based authentication.