1. Introduction

In the following course I would like you to learn how to build a CRUD in Django using REST Framework, a standardized tool for creating APIs with Django, and secondly, with Python.

The minimum requirements are:

• Have the most up-to-date version of Python 3 installed.
• A text editor. If you are just getting started, I recommend Pycharm Community Edition or VSCode with the Python plugin.
• Access to the terminal.

The goals to achieve are the essential ones in any API:

• Endpoint that lists books.
• Endpoint that shows us the details of a specific book.
• Endpoint to add a book.
• Endpoint to update an existing book.
• Endpoint that deletes an existing book.
• Create tests for all the Endpoints to make sure they work under any circumstances.

If you are impatient and want to try the results out right away, you can open the terminal. Below you can hit a server where a copy of the code you are going to learn is up and running.

List books

Unfortunately, Heroku announced that it would remove its free plans, which means the examples in this lesson are not available to test with curl, since it was deployed on a free Dyno. The situation would be different if the site received enough recurring donations. As that is not the case, you can test it directly on your own machine using the code found in the GitHub repository.

curl  https://example-of-crud-in-django-jrf.herokuapp.com/api/book/

Output

[
    {
        "id": 1,
        "title": "Things Fall Apart",
        "country": "Nigeria",
        "year": 1958,
        "author": "Chinua Achebe",
        "created_at": "2021-07-15T14:27:14.927177",
        "updated_at": "2021-07-15T14:27:14.927213"
    },
    {
        "id": 2,
        "title": "Fairy tales",
        "country": "Denmark",
        "year": 1836,
        "author": "Hans Christian Andersen",
        "created_at": "2021-07-15T14:27:14.930223",
        "updated_at": "2021-07-15T14:27:14.930233"
    },
   ...

Get the details of a book

curl https://example-of-crud-in-django-jrf.herokuapp.com/api/book/1/

Output

{
    "id": 1,
    "title": "Things Fall Apart",
    "country": "Nigeria",
    "year": 1958,
    "author": "Chinua Achebe",
    "created_at": "2021-07-15T14:27:14.927177",
    "updated_at": "2021-07-15T14:27:14.927213"
}

Create a book

curl -XPOST -H "Content-type: application/json" -d '{"title": "The foundation", "country": "eeuu", "author": "Isaac Asimov", "year": "1951"}' https://example-of-crud-in-django-jrf.herokuapp.com/api/book/

Output

{
  "id": 101,
  "title": "The foundation",
  "country": "eeuu",
  "year": 1951,
  "author": "Isaac Asimov",
  "created_at": "2021-07-15T14:47:25.262738",
  "updated_at": "2021-07-15T14:47:25.262753"
}

Update a book

curl -XPUT -H "Content-type: application/json" -d '{"title": "The End of Eternity", "country": "eeuu", "author": "Isaac Asimov", "year": "1955"}' https://example-of-crud-in-django-jrf.herokuapp.com/api/book/1/

Output

{
  "id": 1,
  "title": "The End of Eternity",
  "country": "eeuu",
  "year": 1955,
  "author": "Isaac Asimov",
  "created_at": "2021-07-15T14:47:25.262738",
  "updated_at": "2021-07-15T14:50:47.697224"
}

Delete a book

curl -XDELETE https://example-of-crud-in-django-jrf.herokuapp.com/api/book/1/

Output

{
  "id": null,
  "title": "The End of Eternity",
  "country": "eeuu",
  "year": 1955,
  "author": "Isaac Asimov",
  "created_at": "2021-07-15T14:47:25.262738",
  "updated_at": "2021-07-15T14:50:47.697224"
}

Check that the server is up

curl https://example-of-crud-in-django-jrf.herokuapp.com/ping/

Output

{"ping": "pong!"}

If you get lost at any step, don't hesitate to check out or download the code I have hosted in the GitHub repository.

Are you ready? Let's begin!