Django — REST Framework

Installation

pip install djangorestframework

Setup

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'rest_framework',
]

Serializer

# blog/serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Post

class PostSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Post
        fields = ['id', 'title', 'content', 'author', 'created_at']

Function-Based View

from rest_framework.decorators import api_view
from rest_framework.response import Response

@api_view(['GET', 'POST'])
def post_list(request):
    if request.method == 'GET':
        posts = Post.objects.all()
        serializer = PostSerializer(posts, many=True)
        return Response(serializer.data)
    
    elif request.method == 'POST':
        serializer = PostSerializer(data=request.data)
        if serializer.is_valid():
            serializer.save()
            return Response(serializer.data, status=201)
        return Response(serializer.errors, status=400)

Class-Based View

from rest_framework import generics
from .models import Post
from .serializers import PostSerializer

class PostListCreate(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
    queryset = Post.objects.all()
    serializer_class = PostSerializer

class PostRetrieveUpdateDestroy(generics.RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView):
    queryset = Post.objects.all()
    serializer_class = PostSerializer

URL Patterns

from django.urls import path
from .views import PostListCreate, PostRetrieveUpdateDestroy

urlpatterns = [
    path('api/posts/', PostListCreate.as_view()),
    path('api/posts/<int:pk>/', PostRetrieveUpdateDestroy.as_view()),
]

Mini Practice

1. Install and configure DRF
2. Create a serializer
3. Build API views
4. Test API endpoints

Up Next

Continue with REST API — REST API design patterns.