Django Dans API Toolkit

Description

Django Dans API Toolkit is a Django app to help make building APIs great.

It provides a collection of tools for common API tasks, intended to complement Django Rest Framework (DRF) rather than replace it.

Available on PyPi

Features

The toolkit includes:

• API Response Handler (api_response_handler.py): Standardizes API response formats with enhanced error logging that automatically captures stack traces for Exception objects. Now with robust error message extraction that supports arbitrarily nested error structures (for example, DRF ValidationError details like { 'user': { 'profile': { 'email': ['Invalid email.'] } }, 'password': ['Too short.'] }). The handler will always surface the first relevant string error it finds, even if it is several levels deep in a dict or list, ensuring user-friendly error messages regardless of how complex the error structure is. Type annotations and docstrings have also been improved for clarity and best practices.
• API Response Renderer (api_response_renderer.py): Ensures consistent response rendering across your APIs.
• Base Serializer (serializers/base.py): Simplifies serializer creation with masking and reference functionality.

Quick Start

Installation

1. Install the package via pip:

   pip install django-dans-api-toolkit
   

2. Add django_dans_api_toolkit to your INSTALLED_APPS setting:

   INSTALLED_APPS = [
       ...
       'django_dans_api_toolkit',
   ]
   

3. Run migrations to update your database schema:

   python manage.py migrate
   

4. Use the provided tools in your views and serializers.

Example Usage

API Response Handler

from django_dans_api_toolkit.api_response_handler import ApiResponseHandler
from django.core.exceptions import ValidationError

def my_view(request):
    handler = ApiResponseHandler()
    
    try:
        # Your API logic here
        serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
        data = {"key": "value"}
        return handler.response_success(results=data)
    except ValidationError as e:
        # Exception objects automatically get full stack traces in logs! 
        # Error message extraction also supports arbitrarily nested error structures.
        return handler.response_error(
            message="Validation failed",
            error=e, 
            error_fields=serializer.errors
        )

Base Serializer

from django_dans_api_toolkit.serializers.base import BaseSerializer
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelSerializer(BaseSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = MyModel
        fields = '__all__'
        ref_fields = ['field1', 'field2']
        masked_fields = ['field3']  # removed unless masked=False; mask_as_null=True keeps it as null

API Response Renderer

Ensure DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES and DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS are set in your settings.py for proper API functionality. Set the renderer itself as well.

Example configuration:

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    "DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS": "rest_framework.pagination.PageNumberPagination",
    "PAGE_SIZE": 20,
    "DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES": (
        "rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication",
    ),
}

Requirements

• Python 3.10 - 3.11
• Django 3.1 or higher
• Django Rest Framework
  • NOTE: not only must you have this installed, you must have set DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES and DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS in your settings.py to work with the APIs properly. An example config would be:

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