tastypie Django REST framework API [Hello JSON]

tastypie is a good thing.

Haven't test it thoroughly. Gonna need some provement.

Now I will introduct how to use tastepie for newbies.

Let me introduce all the equipments I have to deploy tastypie.

1) linuxmint 13

2) virtualenv ( sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv )

3) install django==1.5 in the virtualenv folder ( ./bin/pip install django==1.5 )

4) install django-tastypie (./bin/pip install django-tastypie )

5) create new project ( ./bin/djangoadmin.py startproject ts2 )

6) get into the 'ts2' folder ( cd ts2 )

7) create new app (../bin/djangoadmin.py startapp myapp    NOTICE: folder myapp is at the same folder level as manage.py )

8) edit file    ts2/myapp/models.py as following,

from tastypie.utils.timezone import now
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.db import models
from django.template.defaultfilters import slugify

class Entry(models.Model):
    user = models.ForeignKey(User)
    pub_date = models.DateTimeField(default=now)
    title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    slug = models.SlugField()
    body = models.TextField()

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.title

    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # For automatic slug generation.
        if not self.slug:
            self.slug = slugify(self.title)[:50]

        return super(Entry, self).save(*args, **kwargs)

9) create ts2/myapp/api.py like this,

# myapp/api.py
from tastypie.resources import ModelResource
from models import Entry          # Here i corrected it. the docs from tastypieapi.org is
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　#\ wrong that from myapp.models import Entry

class EntryResource(ModelResource):
    class Meta:
        queryset = Entry.objects.all()
        resource_name = 'entry'

10) add 2 rows in the ts2/ts2/settings.py as this,

add 'tastypie' and 'myapp' in the INSTALLED_APPS ,

11) edit ts2/ts2/urls.py ,

from django.conf.urls import patterns, include, url

# Uncomment the next two lines to enable the admin:
# from django.contrib import admin
# admin.autodiscover
from myapp.api import EntryResource
entry_resource = EntryResource()

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    # Examples:
    # url(r'^$', 'ts2.views.home', name='home'),
    # url(r'^ts2/', include('ts2.foo.urls')),

    # Uncomment the admin/doc line below to enable admin documentation:
    # url(r'^admin/doc/', include('django.contrib.admindocs.urls')),

    # Uncomment the next line to enable the admin:
    # url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    # The normal jazz here...
    #(r'^blog/', include('myapp.urls')),
    (r'^api/', include(entry_resource.urls)),
)

12) initialize database , forms, and data ( ../bin/python manage.py syncdb )

File struture of this project:

ts2/
|-- db.sqlite3
|-- manage.py
|-- myapp
|   |-- api.py
|   |-- __init__.py
|   |-- models.py
|   |-- tests.py
|   `-- views.py
`-- ts2
    |-- __init__.py
    |-- settings.py
    |-- urls.py
    |-- wsgi.py

13) run server ( ../bin/python manage runserver )

go to http://localhost:8000/api/entry/?format=json

Now you will see this:

This help you to read JSON ! :)

http://json.parser.online.fr/

Isn't good? :P

Before awaring of tastypie, I used orignal JSON parser and 3rd party ORM to do things like REST application works.

I have also heard of django-gap which is more lighter than tastypie.

Gonna have a comparison if possible. :)

Happy Coding!