Show data to users¶
The view you have used so far just added a ressource_uri. But preserve the id attribut. As id is an internal representation of the data you may wich to remove it.
Define a formater function¶
To do so you’ll have to write a simple function to plug on the view. This function is a formater. When the View instanciate the formater, it give you access to the response object and the object to be rendered.
Because you want to remove the id of the reprensentaion of your ressource, you can write:
def remove_id(response, obj):
obj.pop("id")
return obj
and change the view part of your UserEndPoint as follow:
view = {"response_class": JsonResponse,
"options": {"formaters": ["add_ressource_uri",
remove_id]}}
add_ressource_uri is the default formatter for this View. You dont need to remove it for now. But if you try, then it will work as expected. The ressource_uri field will be removed.
The idea behind Python REST API Framework is to always get out of your way.
You can check that it work as expected:
curl -i "http://localhost:5000/users/1/"
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 80
Server: Werkzeug/0.8.3 Python/2.7.2
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 23:41:55 GMT
{"first_name": "Captain", "last_name": "America",
"ressource_uri": "/users/1/"}
Make things generics¶
This implementation work on your endpoint because you each object has an id. But, if later you create another endpoint with ressources lacking the “id” key, you’ll have to re-write your function.
Instead, you can take advantage of the response wich is part of the parameters of your function.
response object carry the attribut model who define your ressources fields. You can then get the name of the Pk field used with this ressource with:
response.model.pk_field.name
Your code then become:
def remove_id(response, obj):
obj.pop(response.model.pk_field.name)
return obj
And reuse this formatter as long as you need.
Formaters are here to help you build clean and meaningful ressources representations. It should hide internal representation of your ressources and return all of the fields needed to manipulate and represent your data.