using DRF with something other than models?

[Abraham Varricatt]

Hello,

Is it possible to use Django Rest Framework (DRF) for something other than models? Here's a trivial example,

To make an API end point which returns the current server time (in JSON format, eg: {"current_time": "XYZ"}). It can accept a string to indicate timezone, and must accept both GET and POST.

I can figure out how to do the above without DRF using regular Django urls and views. What I can't figure out is how to use DRF for the same. 

From the docs, it looks best to use routers when making a DRF end-point. Which means I need a structure like this,

urls.py <-> router <-> Viewset <-> Serializer

But as I understand Serilizers ( http://www.django-rest-framework.org/api-guide/serializers/ ), they can only be used for complex models or querysets - which is not what I need.

I feel like I'm mis-understanding something about DRF. Help please?

Puzzled,

Abraham V.

[Matheus Bratfisch]

You could create a View that extends APIView and return directly the response on get method without Serializer.

There are ModelSerializer, ViewSet which are more related to Models, but everything is not implemented on them, they extend other classes, so you could go to the parent class and extend it.

Best regards,

--
Matheus (X-warrior) Bratfisch.
http://matbra.com

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[Jeff Tchang]

This is how I do stuff:

in urls.py:

router.register(time', viewsets. TimeViewSet, 'time')

http://example.com/time/timedata/

class TimeViewSet(viewsets.GenericViewSet):

    @list_route(methods=['get'], permission_classes=[]) 

    def timedata(self, request):

        data = {

          'current_time' : timezone.now()

        }

        return Response(data)        

Obviously better to do stuff in a RESTful manner but this works for me.

-Jeff

[Info Cascade]

I think something like this?

urls.py
import views
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^server_time', views.ServerTimeView.as_view(),
name='server_time'),
]

views.py
import datetime
from rest_framework.views import APIView
from rest_framework.response import Response

class ServerTimeView(APIView):
def get(self, request, format=None):
return Response({
'server_time': datetime.datetime.utcnow()
})
def post(self, request, format=None):
try:
new_time =
datetime.datetime.strptime(request.data['server_time'],"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")
# set the system time to "new_time"

return Response({
'response': new_time
})
except:
pass

curl -i --request POST -H "Content-type: application/json" --data
'{"server_time":"2016-06-21T03:31:45"}'
http://192.168.1.120:8000/api/server_time

I don't think you need serializers.

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[Xavier Ordoquy]

Hi,

You may also want to look at https://medium.com/django-rest-framework/django-rest-framework-viewset-when-you-don-t-have-a-model-335a0490ba6f

It explains how to use a Viewset without models.

Regards,

Xavier,

Linovia.

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[Tom Christie]

I'd really recommend just using regular views and URL conf. Writing views explicitly, using renderers/parsers/permissions/authentication to set up your basic API policies, making use of serializers for data validation, etc... gives you plenty of value over using regular Django, while still keeping your view logic nice and explict.

You *can* use routers and viewsets, but it's typically over-complicated, unless you happen to be writing a CRUD-style API.

Cheers,

  Tom