Flask API

Browsable web APIs for Flask.

Status: This project is in maintenance mode. The original author (Tom Christie) has shifted his focus to API Star. Passing PRs will still be considered for releases by the maintainer (Jace Browning).

Overview

Flask API is a drop-in replacement for Flask that provides an implementation of browsable APIs similar to what Django REST framework offers. It gives you properly content-negotiated responses and smart request parsing:

Installation

Requirements:

Python 3.6+
Flask 1.1.+

Install using pip:

$ pip install Flask-API

Import and initialize your application:

from flask_api import FlaskAPI

app = FlaskAPI(__name__)

Responses

Return any valid response object as normal, or return a list or dict.

@app.route('/example/')
def example():
    return {'hello': 'world'}

A renderer for the response data will be selected using content negotiation based on the client 'Accept' header. If you're making the API request from a regular client, this will default to a JSON response. If you're viewing the API in a browser, it'll default to the browsable API HTML.

Requests

Access the parsed request data using request.data. This will handle JSON or form data by default.

@app.route('/example/')
def example():
    return {'request data': request.data}

Example

The following example demonstrates a simple API for creating, listing, updating and deleting notes.

from flask import request, url_for
from flask_api import FlaskAPI, status, exceptions

app = FlaskAPI(__name__)


notes = {
    0: 'do the shopping',
    1: 'build the codez',
    2: 'paint the door',
}

def note_repr(key):
    return {
        'url': request.host_url.rstrip('/') + url_for('notes_detail', key=key),
        'text': notes[key]
    }


@app.route("/", methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def notes_list():
    """
    List or create notes.
    """
    if request.method == 'POST':
        note = str(request.data.get('text', ''))
        idx = max(notes.keys()) + 1
        notes[idx] = note
        return note_repr(idx), status.HTTP_201_CREATED

    # request.method == 'GET'
    return [note_repr(idx) for idx in sorted(notes.keys())]


@app.route("/<int:key>/", methods=['GET', 'PUT', 'DELETE'])
def notes_detail(key):
    """
    Retrieve, update or delete note instances.
    """
    if request.method == 'PUT':
        note = str(request.data.get('text', ''))
        notes[key] = note
        return note_repr(key)

    elif request.method == 'DELETE':
        notes.pop(key, None)
        return '', status.HTTP_204_NO_CONTENT

    # request.method == 'GET'
    if key not in notes:
        raise exceptions.NotFound()
    return note_repr(key)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(debug=True)

Now run the webapp:

$ python ./example.py
 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/
 * Restarting with reloader

You can now open a new tab and interact with the API from the command line:

$ curl -X GET http://127.0.0.1:5000/
[{"url": "http://127.0.0.1:5000/0/", "text": "do the shopping"},
 {"url": "http://127.0.0.1:5000/1/", "text": "build the codez"},
 {"url": "http://127.0.0.1:5000/2/", "text": "paint the door"}]

$ curl -X GET http://127.0.0.1:5000/1/
{"url": "http://127.0.0.1:5000/1/", "text": "build the codez"}

$ curl -X PUT http://127.0.0.1:5000/1/ -d text="flask api is teh awesomez"
{"url": "http://127.0.0.1:5000/1/", "text": "flask api is teh awesomez"}

You can also work on the API directly in your browser, by opening http://127.0.0.1:5000/. You can then navigate between notes, and make GET, PUT, POST and DELETE API requests.