Creating a Client

The Client class manages all your interaction with the Contentful Delivery API, creating one is as simple as:

client = Client('space-id', 'access-token')

Fetching Resources

The simplest form of fetching resources follows:

client.fetch(Asset).all()         # Returns an array of Assets
client.fetch(Asset).first()       # Returns the first Asset available

client.fetch(Entry).all()         # Returns an array of Entries
client.fetch(Entry).first()       # Returns the first Entry available

client.fetch(ContentType).all()   # Returns an array of Content Types
client.fetch(ContentType).first() # Returns the first Content Type available

When used with the all() method, expect an Array object to be returned, which is iterable:

for resource in array:
    dosomething(resource)

and sliceable:

for resource in array[2:4]:
    dosomething(resource)

Custom Queries

Custom queries can be provided by invoking the where() method of a Request object, for example:

client.fetch(Entry).where({'sys.id': 'MyEntry'}).first()

Defining Models

Custom Entry classes can be declared by providing a Content Type ID value and by defining a set of fields. Consider the Cat Content Type from the official demo space, which looks like this (sans some properties for brevity):

{
  "fields": [
    {"id": "name", "name": "Name", "type": "Text"},
    {"id": "likes", "name": "Likes", "type": "Array", "items": { "type": "Symbol" }},
    {"id": "color", "name": "Color", "type": "Symbol"},
    {"id": "bestFriend", "name": "Best Friend", "type": "Link", "linkType": "Entry"},
    {"id": "birthday", "name": "Birthday", "type": "Date"},
    {"id": "lives", "name": "Lives left", "type": "Integer"},
    {"id": "image", "name": "Image", "type": "Link", "linkType": "Asset"}
  ],
  "name": "Cat",
  "displayField": "name",
  "description": "Meow."
}

A custom Entry class for this Content Type can be defined as follows:

class Cat(Entry):
    __content_type__ = 'cat'

    name = Field(Text)
    likes = Field(List)
    color = Field(Text)
    best_friend = Field(Link, field_id='bestFriend')
    birthday = Field(Date)
    lives = Field(Number)
    image = Field(Link)

The class also has to be registered when creating a Client:

client = Client('cfexampleapi', 'b4c0n73n7fu1', custom_entries=[Cat])

Whenever this Client will attempt to create an Entry with a Content Type that matches the one defined in the class, an instance of the Cat class will be created, and it’s fields will be set accordingly, and can later be easily accessed as instance attributes:

print('Name of the Cat: {0}'.format(cat.name))

If at any point it is desired to fetch only resources of that type, it can be passed to the fetch() method and inferred by the client:

client.fetch(Cat).all() # Fetches all the Cats!

Link Resolution

Unless specified otherwise, a Client is configured to resolve links automatically when fetching resources. Be mindful about providing the include parameter properly, since only if the linked resources are contained within the response they will be resolved automatically. In case a link is not resolved, expect a ResourceLink value, which can be resolved by invoking the resolve_resource_link() method of a Client (issues a network request per the resource ID).

Automatic link resolution:

array = client.fetch(Cat).all()
print(array[0].best_friend)
# <Cat(sys.id=nyancat)>

Manual link resolution:

cat = client.fetch(Cat).where({'sys.id': 'nyancat', 'include': 0}).first()
print(cat.best_friend)
# <contentful.cda.resources.ResourceLink object at 0x1030df390>
print(client.resolve_resource_link(cat.best_friend))
# <Cat(sys.id=nyancat)>