Building REST APIs with Python Flask

Introduction to Flask

Flask is a lightweight Python web framework perfect for building REST APIs. It's simple, flexible, and easy to get started with.

Setting Up Flask

# Install Flask
pip install flask flask-cors

# app.py
from flask import Flask, request, jsonify
from flask_cors import CORS

app = Flask(__name__)
CORS(app)

@app.route('/api/health', methods=['GET'])
def health_check():
    return jsonify({'status': 'ok'}), 200

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(debug=True, port=5000)

Creating API Endpoints

from flask_sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy

app.config['SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI'] = 'sqlite:///app.db'
db = SQLAlchemy(app)

class User(db.Model):
    id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
    name = db.Column(db.String(100), nullable=False)
    email = db.Column(db.String(100), unique=True, nullable=False)

@app.route('/api/users', methods=['GET'])
def get_users():
    users = User.query.all()
    return jsonify([user.to_dict() for user in users]), 200

@app.route('/api/users', methods=['POST'])
def create_user():
    data = request.get_json()
    user = User(name=data['name'], email=data['email'])
    db.session.add(user)
    db.session.commit()
    return jsonify(user.to_dict()), 201

Deployment

Deploy Flask API to Heroku, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, or Google Cloud Run.