Mock Express server generated based on your views, that can come in handy when developing REST APIs with Django
Project description
Django REST Mock
Mock Express server generated based on your views, that can come in handy when developing REST APIs with Django.
Typically, the Django developer can first create all the views with docstrings and pass on the project to the front-end developer who can work with the mock server which outputs what is already expected. This allows frontend devs to work with a stable and predictable API.
Requirements
Requires Django 1.11 or later and Node.js.
Note that this requires views to be Class-based Views.
Installation
Using pip:
$ pip install django-rest-mock
Then include rest_mock_server into your INSTALLED_APPS:
INSTALLED_APPS = ( ... 'rest_mock_server', ... )
Usage
After including docstrings for the views you wish to generate endpoints for, you may run the following commands
Generates an ExpressJS file:
$ python manage.py genmockserver
Starts an ExpressJS server (it will generate an ExpressJS file if necessary):
$ python manage.py startmockserver
Syntax
Basic endpoint:
class SomeView(APIView): """ URL: /some-view/ """ def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs): """ ``` { "data": "Hello, world!" } ``` """ pass
RESTful endpoint with list & instances:
class ResourceListView(ListCreateAPIView): """ URL: /resource/__key """ def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs): """ ``` { "__options": { "excludeKey": true }, } ``` """ pass class ResourceView(RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView): """ URL: /resource/__key """ def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs): """ ``` { "__key": "<id:int>", "__key_position": "url", "__mockcount": 5, "__options": { "modifiers": ["patch", "put", "delete"], "excludeKey": false }, "id": "<int>", "name": "<name>", "complexStructure": [ { "link": "<int::10>", "url": "<uri>", "related_user": { "id": "<int:1:5>", "hash": "<sha256>" } } ] } ``` """ pass def put(self, request, *args, **kwargs): """We won't need to specify any response here""" pass def patch(self, request, *args, **kwargs): """We won't need to specify any response here""" pass def delete(self, request, *args, **kwargs): """We won't need to specify any response here""" pass
When creating fixtures for a resource (CRUD), you only need to work with the instance endpoint, in Django REST framework, it’s typically the endpoint that requires a unique ID - e.g. /some-resource/<pk>
You need to specify __key in the url and also in the response as above. The value follows the following syntax <name-of-unique-key:data-type>. You will also need to specify the position of the key: either url or query. If it is url, it exists as a URL param, and query means that the key should be found in query string.
__mockcount: (defaults to 1) Represents the number of instances of this fixture to create
__options: Possible options related to this endpoint:
modifiers: a list of modifier methods allowed for this resource. If you don’t specify a method, that method won’t be allowed for that endpoint
excludeKey: this can be specified to exclude a method from matching __key in the url. E.g. for the POST method for /resource/, you might want to exclude it
The syntax for fake data is as follows: <fakedatatype:min:max>
fakedatatype is any attribute that can be generated by Faker
min: for numbers, it will only generated random numbers that are at least min or greater. For strings, this will be the first index it will slice from
max: for numbers, it will only generated random numbers that are at most max or smaller. For strings, this will be the last index
Special Characters
^: Putting a caret in front of the variable like “<^int:500:1000>” will generate only unique numbers between 500 to 1000
POST requests will not create new instances, but PUT, PATCH and DELETE will work as expected on the resources. The resources are reset everytime the server is restarted.
Meta-Keys
As you have probably seen in the examples above, there are special keys prefixed with double-underscores such as __key. These are meta-keys which will be used to grant special properties to the mock responses.
__key: Represents the primary key/unique identifier of an instance
- __key_position: Where the __key should be located in the url - there are only two options “url” or “query”.
url: The key should be within the main url such as /api/example/__key
query: They key should be within the params such as api/example?id[str]=__key
__mockcount: The number of instances to create. Note that if __key is specified, an endpoint will be created that lists all the individual instances. However, if no __key is specified, then the endpoint will just return an array of N instances where N is specified in __mockcount
- __relationships: Relationships dictate simple relationships between items in the mock response. The syntax is always “<source__relationship__target>”
count: It would be best illustrated with an example:
{ "__relationships": [ "user_count__count__users", ], "user_count": 20, "users": [ { "id": "<int::50>", "user": "<name>" } ] }
If you want to specify a source value without displaying it in the eventual endpoint, you may use the hidden syntax with a double-dash:
{ "__relationships": [ "--user_count__count__users", ], "--user_count": 20, "users": [ { "id": "<int::50>", "user": "<name>" } ] }
- __options: Possible options related to this endpoint are as follows
modifiers: a list of modifier methods allowed for this resource. If you don’t specify a method, that method won’t be allowed for that endpoint
excludeKey: this can be specified to exclude a method from matching __key in the url. E.g. for the POST method for /resource/, you might want to exclude it
Fixtures
More often than not, you will need to load fixtures to populate the mock endpoints.
We can load fixtures during generation by specifying the --fixtures flag: python manage.py genmockserver --fixtures data
Note that the folders must be direct parents. All files with .json extension will be taken into account.
The syntax for that will be: “<key__from__filename>”
If a file called users.json was loaded, then you can do:
{ "id": "<id__from__users>", "full_name": "<first_name__from__users> <last_name__from__users>", "contact": "<contact__from__users>" }
The JSON files must follow Django’s format of JSON fixtures and the fields must include the keys used in the mock response. So “id”, “first_name”, “last_name” and “contact” must all exist in the users fields.
Advanced Usage with *
There may be a situation where you would like to specify the keys in an endpoint and what type of response each key maps to.
For example, you might have the following base URL “/api/example” and you would like to have the following key definition:
URL: /api/example?id[str]=__key { "__key": "<*id:str>", "__key_position": "query", "users": [ { "id": "<id__from__users>", "name": "<name__from__users>" } ], "burgers": [ { "id": "<id__from__burgers>", "burger_type": "<burger__from__burgers>" } ] }
This will generate an endpoint that allows for two specific keys “/api/example?id=users” and “/api/example?id=burgers”, which will each respond with whatever is defined under them. Note the asterisk in front of the key which indicates that all non-meta keys will be taken as keys for this endpoint. In this case, our keys are “users” and “burgers”
Example
Refer to the example app for a detailed example.
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