django-rest-framework/docs/index.md

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Django REST framework

Awesome web-browseable Web APIs.

Django REST framework is a flexible, powerful Web API toolkit. It is designed as a modular and easy to customize architecture, based on Django's class based views.

APIs built using REST framework are fully self-describing and web browseable - a huge useability win for your developers. It also supports a wide range of media types, authentication and permission policies out of the box.

If you are considering using REST framework for your API, we recommend reading the REST framework 2 announcement which gives a good overview of the framework and it's capabilities.

There is also a sandbox API you can use for testing purposes, available here.

Below: Screenshot from the browseable API

Requirements

REST framework requires the following:

• Python (2.6.5+, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3)
• Django (1.3, 1.4, 1.5)

The following packages are optional:

• Markdown (2.1.0+) - Markdown support for the browseable API.
• PyYAML (3.10+) - YAML content-type support.
• defusedxml (0.3+) - XML content-type support.
• django-filter (0.5.4+) - Filtering support.
• django-oauth-plus (2.0+) and oauth2 (1.5.211+) - OAuth 1.0a support.
• django-oauth2-provider (0.2.3+) - OAuth 2.0 support.

Note: The oauth2 python package is badly misnamed, and actually provides OAuth 1.0a support. Also note that packages required for both OAuth 1.0a, and OAuth 2.0 are not yet Python 3 compatible.

Installation

Install using pip, including any optional packages you want...

pip install djangorestframework
pip install markdown  # Markdown support for the browseable API.
pip install pyyaml    # YAML content-type support.
pip install django-filter  # Filtering support

...or clone the project from github.

git clone git@github.com:tomchristie/django-rest-framework.git
cd django-rest-framework
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -r optionals.txt

Add 'rest_framework' to your INSTALLED_APPS setting.

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'rest_framework',        
)

If you're intending to use the browseable API you'll probably also want to add REST framework's login and logout views. Add the following to your root urls.py file.

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    ...
    url(r'^api-auth/', include('rest_framework.urls', namespace='rest_framework'))
)

Note that the URL path can be whatever you want, but you must include 'rest_framework.urls' with the 'rest_framework' namespace.

Quickstart

Can't wait to get started? The quickstart guide is the fastest way to get up and running, and building APIs with REST framework.

Tutorial

The tutorial will walk you through the building blocks that make up REST framework. It'll take a little while to get through, but it'll give you a comprehensive understanding of how everything fits together, and is highly recommended reading.

• 1 - Serialization
• 2 - Requests & Responses
• 3 - Class based views
• 4 - Authentication & permissions
• 5 - Relationships & hyperlinked APIs
• 6 - ViewSets & Routers

API Guide

The API guide is your complete reference manual to all the functionality provided by REST framework.

• Requests
• Responses
• Views
• Generic views
• ViewSets and Routers
• Parsers
• Renderers
• Serializers
• Serializer fields
• Serializer relations
• Authentication
• Permissions
• Throttling
• Filtering
• Pagination
• Content negotiation
• Format suffixes
• Returning URLs
• Exceptions
• Status codes
• Settings

Topics

General guides to using REST framework.

• AJAX, CSRF & CORS
• Browser enhancements
• The Browsable API
• REST, Hypermedia & HATEOAS
• 2.0 Announcement
• 2.2 Announcement
• Release Notes
• Credits

Development

If you want to work on REST framework itself, clone the repository, then...

Build the docs:

./mkdocs.py

Run the tests:

./rest_framework/runtests/runtests.py

To run the tests against all supported configurations, first install the tox testing tool globally, using pip install tox, then simply run tox:

tox

Support

For support please see the REST framework discussion group, try the #restframework channel on irc.freenode.net, or raise a question on Stack Overflow, making sure to include the 'django-rest-framework' tag.

Paid support is available from DabApps, and can include work on REST framework core, or support with building your REST framework API. Please contact DabApps if you'd like to discuss commercial support options.

For updates on REST framework development, you may also want to follow the author on Twitter.

Follow @_tomchristie

License

Copyright (c) 2011-2013, Tom Christie All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.