In Flask-RESTful we add an api route like the below
api.add_resource(CuteKitty,'/api/kitty') class CuteKitty(Resource): def get(self): return {} def post(self): return {} def put(self): return {} def delete(self): return None, 204
so that GET /api/kitty
–> to CuteKitty.get()
method; like this for all HTTP verbs
Lets say that I need to provide my api consumers with a cute api like
POST /api/kitty/drink/milk ---> CuteKitty.drink(what="milk") POST /api/kitty/meow ---> CuteKitty.meow()
How can i achive the above routing with api.add_resource
class CuteKitty(Resource): def get(self): return {} def post(self): return {} def put(self): return {} def delete(self): return None, 204 def drink(self,what="milk"): return {} def meow(self): return {}
Like wise how to add route like /api/kitty/<int:kitty_id>/habits
–> CuteKitty.habits(kitty_id)
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Answer
Flask-RESTful is designed to implement RESTful APIs specifically by interpreting the HTTP Request method. Drink and Meow are not standard HTTP methods so Flask-RESTful isn’t concerned with the drink
and meow
methods in the resource.
The solution to this is to define multiple API routes:
api.add_resource(CuteKitty, '/kitty/<int:kitty_id>/') api.add_resource(DrinkingKitty, '/kitty/<int:kitty_id>/drink/<what>') api.add_resource(MeowingKitty, '/kitty/<int:kitty_id>/meow/')
The less intuitive (and imo far worse) way is by creating a frankenresource:
# still allow requests to hit just get/post/etc without invoking anything else api.add_resource(CuteKitty, '/kitty/<int:kitty_id>/') api.add_resource(CuteKitty, '/kitty/<int:kitty_id>/<task>/<path:args>/')
And then break the args with split('/')
and call task with them. Alternatively, you could set these as URL arguments (/endpoint/?task=drink&what=milk
) — which is still a valid RESTful architecture.
You could also subclass the Resource class and implement the desired functionality yourself — in this case, I’d recommend looking at how Flask-Classy implements this. Or you could pick up Flask-Classy and toy with it and see how you like that, too; however, for a straight up API I think RESTful brings a lot more to the table than Classy.