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).

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:

Requirements:

• Python 3.6+
• Flask 1.1.+

Install using pip:

$ pip install Flask-API

Import and initialize your application:

fromflask_apiimportFlaskAPIapp=FlaskAPI(__name__)

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

@app.route('/example/')defexample(): 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.

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

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

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

fromflaskimportrequest, url_forfromflask_apiimportFlaskAPI, status, exceptionsapp=FlaskAPI(__name__) notes={0: 'do the shopping', 1: 'build the codez', 2: 'paint the door', } defnote_repr(key): return{'url': request.host_url.rstrip('/') +url_for('notes_detail', key=key), 'text': notes[key] } @app.route("/", methods=['GET', 'POST'])defnotes_list(): """ List or create notes. """ifrequest.method=='POST': note=str(request.data.get('text', '')) idx=max(notes.keys()) +1notes[idx] =notereturnnote_repr(idx), status.HTTP_201_CREATED# request.method == 'GET'return [note_repr(idx) foridxinsorted(notes.keys())] @app.route("/<int:key>/", methods=['GET', 'PUT', 'DELETE'])defnotes_detail(key): """ Retrieve, update or delete note instances. """ifrequest.method=='PUT': note=str(request.data.get('text', '')) notes[key] =notereturnnote_repr(key) elifrequest.method=='DELETE': notes.pop(key, None) return'', status.HTTP_204_NO_CONTENT# request.method == 'GET'ifkeynotinnotes: raiseexceptions.NotFound() returnnote_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.