Flask API Builder

A really simple app that allows you to write out your RESTful APIs spec in a logical form and automatically generate stub functions for each endpoint.

Installing

Install from Source

To install from source, you will need to first clone the repository from GitHub:

git clone XXXX

Then run the setup.py file:

python3 setup.py install

With Pip

Or you can install directly from the Python Packaging Index:

pip install flask_api_builder

Usage

In order to generate your base API, you first need to write up a spec for it. The spec contains the definitions for each of your API's end points, as well as some variables to customize the Blueprint each API endpoint is attached to.

Writing The Spec File

The spec file is designed to be quite intuitive to use. It is set out in a table-like format, with each column being aligned with spaces. Any line starting with a "#" is interpreted as a comment and ignored by the parser.

Defining Variables

Defining variables is really easy, just add a line with variable-name: value. The variable names currently supported are:

Blueprint-name

The name for your blueprint (defaults to "api")

Prepend-with

The path that all endpoints attached to your API Blueprint are prepended with (nothing by default)

Error-handlers

Add pre-made 404 and 500 error handlers. They will be included unless something other than true, yes, 1, or y is entered (not case sensitive)

All variable names are not case sensitive.

Defining Endpoints

API Endpoints are defined one per line, in a table-like format. Each line consists of 3 or 4 fields delimited by two or more whitespace characters. This means that you need to separate your columns by at least two spaces so the parser will read them correctly.

The fields correspond to an endpoint's METHOD, URL, DESCRIPTION and (optionally) the NAME of the function generated. If no name is provided then one will be generated for you given the method and URL parameters (no guarantees that the generated name will be intelligible though).

Here is an example of a simple spec for a to-do list app:

blueprint-name: api
#Method    URL                       Description
GET       /tasks                     Retrieve list of tasks
GET       /tasks/<int:task_id>       Retrieve task number <task_id>
POST      /tasks                     Create a new task