Django Forms approach in the processing of a RESTful HTTP request payload (especially for content type like JSON or MessagePack) without HTML front-end.
The main idea was to create a simple and declarative way to specify the format of expecting requests with the ability to validate them. Firstly, I tried to use Django Forms to validate my API requests (I use pure Django in my APIs). I have encountered a problem with nesting my requests without a huge boilerplate. Also, the whole HTML thing was pretty useless in my RESTful APIs.
I wanted to:
Form),form = Form.create_from_request(request)),form.is_valid(),form.clean_data property.I wanted to keep:
So I have decided to create a simple Python package to cover all my expectations.
# Using pip
pip install django-api-forms
# Using poetry
peotry add django-api-forms
# Using setup.py
python setup.py install
Optional:
# msgpack support (for requests with Content-Type: application/x-msgpack)
peotry add msgpack
# ImageField support
peotry add Pillow
Install application in your Django project by adding django_api_forms to yours INSTALLED_APPS:
INSTALLED_APPS = (
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django_api_forms'
)
You can change the default behavior of population strategies or parsers using these settings (listed with default values). Keep in mind, that dictionaries are not replaced by your settings they are merged with defaults.
For more information about the parsers and the population strategies check the documentation.
DJANGO_API_FORMS_POPULATION_STRATEGIES = {
'django_api_forms.fields.FormFieldList': 'django_api_forms.population_strategies.IgnoreStrategy',
'django_api_forms.fields.FileField': 'django_api_forms.population_strategies.IgnoreStrategy',
'django_api_forms.fields.ImageField': 'django_api_forms.population_strategies.IgnoreStrategy',
'django_api_forms.fields.FormField': 'django_api_forms.population_strategies.IgnoreStrategy',
'django.forms.models.ModelMultipleChoiceField': 'django_api_forms.population_strategies.IgnoreStrategy',
'django.forms.models.ModelChoiceField': 'django_api_forms.population_strategies.ModelChoiceFieldStrategy'
}
DJANGO_API_FORMS_DEFAULT_POPULATION_STRATEGY = 'django_api_forms.population_strategies.BaseStrategy'
DJANGO_API_FORMS_PARSERS = {
'application/json': 'json.loads',
'application/x-msgpack': 'msgpack.loads'
}
Simple nested JSON request
{
"title": "Unknown Pleasures",
"type": "vinyl",
"artist": {
"_name": "Joy Division",
"genres": [
"rock",
"punk"
],
"members": 4
},
"year": 1979,
"songs": [
{
"title": "Disorder",
"duration": "3:29"
},
{
"title": "Day of the Lords",
"duration": "4:48",
"metadata": {
"_section": {
"type": "ID3v2",
"offset": 0,
"byteLength": 2048
},
"header": {
"majorVersion": 3,
"minorRevision": 0,
"size": 2038
}
}
}
],
"metadata": {
"created_at": "2019-10-21T18:57:03+0100",
"updated_at": "2019-10-21T18:57:03+0100"
}
}
Django API Forms equivalent + validation
from enum import Enum
from django.core.exceptions import ValidationError
from django.forms import fields
from django_api_forms import FieldList, FormField, FormFieldList, DictionaryField, EnumField, AnyField, Form
class AlbumType(Enum):
CD = 'cd'
VINYL = 'vinyl'
class ArtistForm(Form):
class Meta:
mapping = {
'_name': 'name'
}
name = fields.CharField(required=True, max_length=100)
genres = FieldList(field=fields.CharField(max_length=30))
members = fields.IntegerField()
class SongForm(Form):
title = fields.CharField(required=True, max_length=100)
duration = fields.DurationField(required=False)
metadata = AnyField(required=False)
class AlbumForm(Form):
title = fields.CharField(max_length=100)
year = fields.IntegerField()
artist = FormField(form=ArtistForm)
songs = FormFieldList(form=SongForm)
type = EnumField(enum=AlbumType, required=True)
metadata = DictionaryField(fields.DateTimeField())
def clean_year(self):
if self.cleaned_data['year'] == 1992:
raise ValidationError("Year 1992 is forbidden!", 'forbidden-value')
return self.cleaned_data['year']
def clean(self):
if (self.cleaned_data['year'] == 1998) and (self.cleaned_data['artist']['name'] == "Nirvana"):
raise ValidationError("Sounds like a bullshit", code='time-traveling')
if not self._request.user.is_authenticated():
raise ValidationError("You can use request in form validation!")
return self.cleaned_data
"""
Django view example
"""
def create_album(request):
form = AlbumForm.create_from_request(request)
if not form.is_valid():
# Process your validation error
print(form.errors)
# Cleaned valid payload
payload = form.cleaned_data
print(payload)
If you want example with whole Django project, check out repository created by pawl django_api_forms_modelchoicefield_example, where he uses library with ModelChoiceField.
# install all dependencies
poetry install
# run code-style check
poetry run flake8 .
# run the tests
poetry run python runtests.py
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mappingfield_type_strategy and field_strategyDictionaryField was unable to raise validation errors for keysAnniversary release 🥳
fill method is deprecated and replaced by populateSettings object introduced (form.settings)DJANGO_API_FORMS_PARSERS settingmime argument in FileField is supposed to be a tupleFieldList and FormFieldList now supports optional min/max constrains using min_length/max_lengthModelForm class introduced (experimental, initial support - not recommended for production)fill_method introducedImage.verify() call in ImageField::to_pythonApiFormException('No clean data provided! Try to call is_valid() first.') was incorrectly raised if
request payload was empty during Form::fill method callclean_data property is by default None instead of empty dictionaryclean_ methods returning values resolved as False (False, None, '')ModelMultipleChoiceField in Form::fill()ModelChoiceField is used in Form::fill()DjangoApiFormsConfig is createdpytest in project (we don't need it)FileField.content_type introduced (contains mime)FileField and ImageField introducedsetup.py for optional Pillow and msgpack dependenciesForm::fill() method for primitive data types. Introduced IgnoreFillMixinBaseForm._request property introduced (now it's possible to use request in clean_ methods)Content-Type handling if charset or boundary is presentApiFormException.setup.py (failing on Windows OS).django_api_forms to django-api-forms (cosmetic change without effect)django_request_formatter to django_api_formsdjango_api_formsBooleanField introducedInvalid value as ValidationError not as a stringInvalid value error message, if there is AttributeError, TypeError, ValueError0.5.5 but this time for real__version__.py to version.pyFieldList and FormFieldListmsgpack`` dependency to setup.py`AnyFieldFormField if value is not required and emptyEnumField even if it's not marked as requireddjango.form.fields if possiblekwargs propagation from release 0.3.0django.forms compatible (e.g. form.validate_{key}() -> form.clean_{key}())FieldList raises ValidationError instead of RuntimeException if there is a type in validationFieldList returns values instead of NoneDictionaryFieldForm has no attribute self._dataNoneType errorUUIDFieldDictionaryFieldkwargs from Form.is_valid() to Form.validate() and Form.validate_{key}() methodsto_python() in FormFieldListForm.validate() replaced by Form.is_valid()Form.validate() is now used as a last step of form validation and it's aimed to be overwritten if
neededForm::fill()ValidationErrorForm:errorsDeclarativeFieldsMetaclass because of custom Field classForm::payloaddefault_validators in Fieldvalidation_{field} methods in Form (initial support)EnumFieldForm classCharFieldIntegerFieldFloatFieldDecimalFieldDateFieldTimeFieldDateTimeFieldDurationFieldRegexFieldEmailFieldBooleanFieldRegexFieldFieldListFormFieldFormFieldListFAQs
Declarative Django request validation for RESTful APIs
We found that django-api-forms demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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