django-tastypie

Creating delicious APIs for Django apps since 2010.

Currently in beta (v0.9.9) but being used actively in production on several sites.

Requirements

• Python 2.5+
• Django 1.2+ (May work on Django 1.1)
• mimeparse 0.1.3+ (http://code.google.com/p/mimeparse/)
  • Older versions will work, but their behavior on JSON/JSONP is a touch wonky.
• dateutil (http://labix.org/python-dateutil)
• python_digest (https://bitbucket.org/akoha/python-digest/)
• lxml (http://codespeak.net/lxml/) if using the XML serializer
• pyyaml (http://pyyaml.org/) if using the YAML serializer

What's It Look Like?

A basic example looks like:

# myapp/api.py
# ============
from tastypie.resources import ModelResource
from myapp.models import Entry


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


# urls.py
# =======
from django.conf.urls.defaults import *
from tastypie.api import Api
from myapp.api import EntryResource

v1_api = Api(api_name='v1')
v1_api.register(EntryResource())

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    # The normal jazz here then...
    (r'^api/', include(v1_api.urls)),
)

That gets you a fully working, read-write API for the Entry model that supports all CRUD operations in a RESTful way. JSON/XML/YAML support is already there, and it's easy to add related data/authentication/caching.

You can find more in the documentation at http://toastdriven.github.com/django-tastypie/.

Why tastypie?

There are other, better known API frameworks out there for Django. You need to assess the options available and decide for yourself. That said, here are some common reasons for tastypie.

• You need an API that is RESTful and uses HTTP well.
• You want to support deep relations.
• You DON'T want to have to write your own serializer to make the output right.
• You want an API framework that has little magic, very flexible and maps well to the problem domain.
• You want/need XML serialization that is treated equally to JSON (and YAML is there too).
• You want to support my perceived NIH syndrome, which is less about NIH and more about trying to help out friends/coworkers.

Reference Material

• http://github.com/toastdriven/django-tastypie/tree/master/tests/basic shows basic usage of tastypie
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REST
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes
• http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt
• http://jacobian.org/writing/rest-worst-practices/

author:	Daniel Lindsley
date:	2011/05/20