How to consume RESTful APIs with Django - the easiest way

#django #restful #api #json

Originally posted on my blog

Introduction

A REST API defines a set of functions which developers can perform requests and receive responses via HTTP protocol such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE

Think REST API as a web service that provides you the data you want to use in your application(mobile or front-end client).

The key components for a REST API request are:

GET — The most common option, returns some data from the API based on the given endpoint.
POST — Creates a new record and add it to the database.
PUT — Update an existing record.
DELETE — Deletes the record on the given endpoint.

In this guide, we will use JSONPlaceholder API.

The final project Here

Setting up

Create a new virtual environment

mkdir use_rest_api_with_django && cd use_rest_api_with_django
virtualenv venv

Activate our virtual environment

source /ven/bin/activate

Install Django and requests Library

pip install Django requests

Create a new Django project from the terminal

django-admin startproject consume_restful_api .

Don't forget to put the dot(.) at the end.

Create a simple Django application

python manage.py startapp main_app

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
   'django.contrib.admin',
   'django.contrib.auth',
   'django.contrib.contenttypes',
   'django.contrib.sessions',
   'django.contrib.messages',
   'django.contrib.staticfiles',
   'main_app.apps.MainAppConfig' # add this
]

Change the templates directory

# settings.py
TEMPLATES = [
   {
       'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
       'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')],  # add this
       'APP_DIRS': True,
       'OPTIONS': {
           'context_processors': [
               'django.template.context_processors.debug',
               'django.template.context_processors.request',
               'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
               'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
           ],
       },
   },
]

Inside the views.py file add this

# views.py
import requests
from django.shortcuts import render


def home(request):
   # get the list of todos
   response = requests.get('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/')
   # transfor the response to json objects
   todos = response.json()
   return render(request, "main_app/home.html", {"todos": todos})

Create the required templates

mkdir templates && mkdir templates/main_app
touch templates/base.html && touch templates/main_app/home.html

base.html

<!-- base.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>How to consume RESTful APIs with Django</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2>How to consume RESTful APIs with Django</h2>

    {% block content %} {% endblock content %}
  </body>
</html>

home.html

<!-- base.html -->
{% extends "base.html" %} {% block content %}
<ul>
  {% for todo in todos %}
  <li>{{ todo.id }} - {{ todo.title }}</li>
  {% endfor %}
</ul>
{% endblock content %}

Let's add some styling with bootstrap

Change the base.html file

<!-- base.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <link
      rel="stylesheet"
      href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.4.1/css/bootstrap.min.css"
      integrity="sha384-Vkoo8x4CGsO3+Hhxv8T/Q5PaXtkKtu6ug5TOeNV6gBiFeWPGFN9MuhOf23Q9Ifjh"
      crossorigin="anonymous"
    />
    <title>How to consume RESTful APIs with Django</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2 class="text-center">How to consume RESTful APIs with Django</h2>

    <div class="container">
      {% block content %} {% endblock content %}
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

And home.html

<!-- home.html -->
{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block content %}
<div class="col-md-6 col-auto">
  <div class="card">
    <div class="card-header">
      Todos
    </div>
    <ul class="list-group list-group-flush">
      {% for todo in data %}
      <li class="list-group-item">{{ todo.id }} - {{ todo.title }}</li>
      {% endfor %}
    </ul>
  </div>
</div>
{% endblock content %}

Conclusion

In this article, we've learned how to consume RESTful APIs with Django and Python requests Library.

Thanks for reading.

Top comments (6)

Farhad Ali • Oct 17 '20

hi, thanks for this nice tuts.

I'm trying to create a REST API using Django REST API framework, but unlike a regular project, in this case project I'm required to take data from another api and then create api based on the data fetched from the first api. I'm confused how would I get this setup running? can you guide please?