In this Flask API article we want to learn about Building Flask API with Flask-RESTful, Flask is popular Python web framework that provides simple and flexible way to build web applications. Flask-RESTful is an extension of Flask that allows you to easily build RESTful APIs. RESTful APIs are a way to expose your application’s functionality to other applications or services through standardized set of HTTP methods. in this article we want to talk about building simple Flask API with Flask-RESTful.
First of all we need to install required libraries
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pip install flask flask-restful |
Flask-RESTful resource is Python class that represents specific endpoint of your API. Each resource has its own URL, and you can define HTTP methods to handle incoming requests to that URL.
For creating new resource, you need to create Python class that extends from flask_restful.Resource. this is the example.
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from flask import Flask from flask_restful import Resource, Api app = Flask(__name__) api = Api(app) class HelloWorld(Resource): def get(self): return {'hello': 'geekscoders.com'} api.add_resource(HelloWorld, '/') if __name__ == '__main__': app.run(debug=True) |
In the above example we have created new Flask app, creates new Api instance, and define new HelloWorld resource. get method of the HelloWorld class returns a simple JSON object with the message ‘hello geekscoders.com’. after that we have added HelloWorld resource to the API using the add_resource method.
You can now test your API by sending GET request to http://localhost:5000. you should see the message hello geekscoders.com in your browser.
Handling Request Arguments
Sometimes you will need to handle request arguments in your Flask API. Flask-RESTful makes this easy by providing builtin parser.
For using parser you need to create new instance of flask_restful.reqparse.RequestParser. after that you can add arguments to parser using the add_argument method.
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from flask import Flask from flask_restful import Resource, Api, reqparse app = Flask(__name__) api = Api(app) class Greeting(Resource): def get(self): parser = reqparse.RequestParser() parser.add_argument('name', type=str, help='Name of the person') args = parser.parse_args() return {'message': f'Hello {args["name"]}'} api.add_resource(Greeting, '/greeting') if __name__ == '__main__': app.run(debug=True) |
So run your app and go to this route http://127.0.0.1:5000/greeting?name=geekscoders.com, you will see this result.
