While this isn’t a problem with our test catalog, this will quickly become less useful as we add data. In this section, we’ll add a function that allows users to filter their returned results using a more specific request. Add Filters to the List EndpointUpdate the prog_lang_app.py file’s in_memory_datastore dictionary with a few more programming language entries. Increasing the size of the datastore provides you with more data to filter.

Conversely, if your API were to change its URL structure or cease to function, applications based on it will no longer work. Remember that, when creating an API, you are assuming some responsibility for the applications that others may build with it. Flask is a web framework for Python, meaning that it provides functionality for building web applications, including managing HTTP requests and rendering templates. In this section, we will create a basic Flask application. In later sections, we’ll add to this application to create our API.

When to Create an API

If you have data you wish to share with the world, an API is one way you can get it into the hands of others. However, APIs are not always the best way of sharing data with users. If the size of the data you are providing is relatively small, you can instead provide a “data dump” in the form of a downloadable JSON, XML, CSV, or SQLite file. Depending on your resources, this approach can be viable up to a download size of a few gigabytes. Learn how to set up a basic Application Programming Interface to make your data more accessible to users. This lesson also discusses principles of API design and the benefits of APIs for digital projects. Next, change the list_programming_languages() function to act upon the query parameters before_year and after_year.

The database we’re working with has five columns id, published, author, title, and first_sentence. Each row represents one book that won the Hugo award in the year under the published heading, and the text of which begins with the sentence in the first_sentence column. # A route to return all of the available entries in our catalog. A prototype API for distant reading of science fiction novels. # Create some test data for our catalog in the form of a list of dictionaries.

Sending a GET Request

While the API outlined in this lesson uses some REST principles, there is a great deal of disagreement around this term. For this reason, I do not describe the example APIs here as REST APIs, python api design but instead as web or HTTP APIs. For this tutorial, you will need Python 3 and the Flask web framework. You’ll also require a web browser and a text editor (such as Notepad++ or BBEdit).

We won’t dive into validation in this article, as it will be the subject of another one. Though, as mentioned, we will use marshmallow to serialize and deserialize entities through our endpoints. After installing the package, we will create a file called hello. The huge community forming around Python is improving every aspect of the language.