Django REST framework (DRF) is a powerful and flexible toolkit for building web APIs with Django. It provides a wide range of features out of the box, including:
- Serialization: DRF includes a built-in serialization system that makes it easy to convert between Python objects and JSON or XML.
- Views: DRF provides a variety of class-based views that make it easy to implement common API functionality, such as listing, creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting objects.
- Routers: DRF includes a router system that automatically generates URLs for your API endpoints based on your view classes.
- Authentication and authorization: DRF includes a variety of authentication and authorization mechanisms to help you protect your API.
- Pagination: DRF provides built-in pagination support to help you manage large datasets.
- Filtering and ordering: DRF provides built-in filtering and ordering support to help your users find the data they need.
- Hypermedia support: DRF includes built-in hypermedia support to help you create APIs that are easy to discover and use.
DRF is a popular choice for building APIs because it is easy to use, yet powerful and flexible. It is also well-documented and has a large community of users and contributors.
To get started with DRF, you will need to install it using pip:
pip install djangorestframework
Once you have installed DRF, you need to add it to your Django project’s INSTALLED_APPS setting.
INSTALLED_APPS = [
...
'rest_framework',
...
]
You can then start creating your API endpoints by defining views and serializers.
A view is a class that handles an HTTP request and returns a response. DRF provides a variety of class-based views that make it easy to implement common API functionality.
For example, the following view class lists all of the objects in a Django model:
Python
from rest_framework.generics import ListAPIView
from .models import MyModel
class MyModelListAPIView(ListAPIView):
queryset = MyModel.objects.all()
serializer_class = MyModelSerializer
A serializer is a class that converts between Python objects and JSON or XML. DRF provides a variety of serializers, including ModelSerializers, which make it easy to serialize and deserialize Django models.
The following serializer class serializes and deserializes instances of the MyModel class:
Python
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import MyModel
class MyModelSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = MyModel
fields = '__all__'
Once you have defined your views and serializers, you need to wire them up to your project’s URLs. You can do this by adding a router to your project’s urls.py file.
Python
from django.urls import include, path
from rest_framework import routers
from .views import MyModelListAPIView
router = routers.DefaultRouter()
router.register('my-models', MyModelListAPIView)
urlpatterns = [
path('', include(router.urls)),
]
Now, you can start using your API! You can access the MyModelListAPIView endpoint at /my-models/.
DRF is a powerful and flexible toolkit for building web APIs with Django. It provides a wide range of features out of the box, making it easy to create robust and scalable APIs.
