Course Title: Mastering Django Framework: Building Scalable Web Applications Section Title: Building RESTful APIs with Django REST Framework Topic: Develop a RESTful API for a task management application using Django REST Framework.(Lab topic)

Objective: By the end of this topic, you will be able to design and implement a RESTful API for a task management application using Django REST Framework (DRF). You will learn how to create API endpoints, handle authentication, and implement CRUD operations.

Prerequisites:

• Familiarity with Django and Django REST Framework
• Understanding of RESTful API design principles
• Basic knowledge of Python and Django

Step 1: Setting up the Project

To start, create a new Django project and install Django REST Framework using pip:

django-admin startproject task_manager
cd task_manager
pip install djangorestframework

Add 'rest_framework' to the INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'rest_framework',
    'task_manager.api',  # New app for API
]

Create a new app for the API:

python manage.py startapp api

Step 2: Defining the API Endpoints

Create a new file serializers.py in the api app to define the API endpoints:

from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Task

class TaskSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Task
        fields = ['id', 'title', 'description', 'completed']

Create a new file views.py in the api app to define the API views:

from rest_framework import status
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.views import APIView
from .models import Task
from .serializers import TaskSerializer

class TaskList(APIView):
    def get(self, request):
        tasks = Task.objects.all()
        serializer = TaskSerializer(tasks, many=True)
        return Response(serializer.data)

    def post(self, request):
        serializer = TaskSerializer(data=request.data)
        if serializer.is_valid():
            serializer.save()
            return Response(serializer.data, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
        return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

Step 3: Implementing Authentication

To implement authentication, create a new file authentication.py in the api app:

from rest_framework.authentication import SessionAuthentication
from rest_framework.permissions import IsAuthenticated
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.views import APIView

class AuthenticationView(APIView):
    authentication_classes = [SessionAuthentication]
    permission_classes = [IsAuthenticated]

    def get(self, request):
        return Response({'message': 'Hello, authenticated user!'})

Step 4: Creating API Endpoints

Create a new file urls.py in the api app to define the API endpoints:

from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('tasks/', views.TaskList.as_view()),
    path('tasks/<int:pk>/', views.TaskDetail.as_view()),
]

Step 5: Running the API

Run the API using the following command:

python manage.py runserver

Access the API using a tool like curl or Postman:

curl http://localhost:8000/api/tasks/

This should return a list of tasks.

Conclusion:

In this topic, you learned how to design and implement a RESTful API for a task management application using Django REST Framework. You created API endpoints, handled authentication, and implemented CRUD operations.

Additional Resources:

• Django REST Framework documentation: <https://www.django-rest-framework.org/&gt;
• RESTful API design principles: <https://www.restapitutorial.com/&gt;

Leave a comment or ask for help if you have any questions or need further clarification on any of the steps.