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Restful Web Apis: and Mongodb Go For A Picnic

This document discusses using RESTful APIs and MongoDB together. It describes how MongoDB's JSON-like data structure maps well to REST APIs, allowing resources to be easily retrieved, created, updated and deleted via HTTP requests. The document also outlines how Eve, an open source REST API framework powered by Flask, MongoDB and good intentions, was created to demonstrate these concepts in practice.

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Jesus Antonio
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94 views

Restful Web Apis: and Mongodb Go For A Picnic

This document discusses using RESTful APIs and MongoDB together. It describes how MongoDB's JSON-like data structure maps well to REST APIs, allowing resources to be easily retrieved, created, updated and deleted via HTTP requests. The document also outlines how Eve, an open source REST API framework powered by Flask, MongoDB and good intentions, was created to demonstrate these concepts in practice.

Uploaded by

Jesus Antonio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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RESTful Web APIs

and MongoDB go for a picnic

Nicola Iarocci @nicolaiarocci


Nicola Iarocci
Eve REST API Framework, Cerberus, Events
Co-founder @ gestionaleamica.com,
Book Author,
MongoDB Master
Nicola Iarocci
TL;DR
Passionate full stack developer
Il Piccolo
Libro di MongoDB
edizione italiana del libro di Karl Seguin
disponibile per il download @ nicolaiarocci.com
gestionaleamica.com
invoicing & accounting
gestionaleamica.com
your typical old school desktop application
gestionaleamica.com
now going web and mobile
gestionaleamica.com
“ we need a remote API to keep everything in sync ”

e nt
A -ha mo m
Before

Client Database

Desktop!
Application LAN/SQL
Initial draft

Clients API Database


iOS

Android
RESTful !
“Cloud”
Website Web API
Desktop Client

? ?
Constraints

• minimum viable product first


• add features over time
• frequent database schema updates
• avoid downtime as much as possible
So we started
exploring new paths
MongoDB and REST
!
or why we picked MongoDB for our REST API
JSON-style data store
true selling point for me
JSON for transport
all client to API communication is going to be JSON
JSON & RESTful API
GET

Client Mongo

JSON! JSON!
accepted media type (BSON)

maybe we can push directly to client?


JSON & RESTful API
GET

Client API Mongo

JSON! JSON! JSON!


accepted media type subset of python dict! (BSON)
(kinda)

almost.
JSON & RESTful API
POST

Client API Mongo

JSON! JSON/dict! JSON!


maps to python dict!
objects (BSON)
(validation layer)

also works when posting (adding) items to the database


Similarity with
RDBMS
made NoSQL easy to grasp (even for a dumbhead like me)
Terminology
RDBMS Mongo
Database Database

Table Collection

Rows(s) JSON Document

Index Index

Join Embedding & Linking


What about Queries?
Queries in MongoDB are represented as JSON-style objects

// select * from things where x=3 and y="foo"


db.things.find({x: 3, y: "foo”});
Filtering and Sorting
let’s simply expose MongoDB syntax

?where={x: 3, y: "foo”}

Client API Mongo


(very) thin
native! parsing! JSON!
Mongo! & validation (BSON)
query syntax
layer
JSON
all along the pipeline
mapping to and from the database feels more natural
ORM
Where we’re going we don’t need ORMs.
Schema-less
dynamic documents allow for painless, progressive evolution
PyMongo
MongoDB drivers are beautiful. Really.
Also in MongoDB

• setup is a breeze
• lightweight
• fast inserts, updates and queries
• excellent documentation
• great support by 10gen
• great community
REST in practice
!
with some MongoDB love
Collections
API entry point + plural nouns
api.example.com/contacts

M o n go c ol l e c ti o n
Maps t o a
Document
API entry point + plural nouns + ID
api.example.com/contacts/4f46445fc88e201858000000

l e c t io n O b j ec t I D
Maps t o a c o l
GET
Retrieving Resoruce Data
Resource GET
/contacts?where={“age”: {“$gt”: 20}}&projection={“lastname”: 1}

def get_collection(collection):!
documents = []!
cursor = db(collection).find(where, projection)!
for document in cursor:!
documents.append(document)!
return documents

find() accepts a python dict


as query expression, and
returns a cursor we can
iterate
Resource GET
/contacts?where={“age”: {“$gt”: 20}}&projection={“lastname”: 1}

def get_collection(collection):!
documents = []!
cursor = db(collection).find(where, projection)!
for document in cursor:!
documents.append(document)!
return documents

find() accepts a python dict


as query expression, and
returns a cursor we can
iterate
Resource GET
/contacts?where={“age”: {“$gt”: 20}}&projection={“lastname”: 1}

def get_collection(collection):!
documents = []!
cursor = db(collection).find(where, projection)!
for document in cursor:!
documents.append(document)!
return documents

find() accepts a python dict


as query expression, and
returns a cursor we can
iterate
JSON Rendering
JSON Rendering

f r o m Mo n go
straight
JSON Rendering
PATCH
Editing a Document
PATCHing
def patch_document(collection, original):!
(...)!
# Perform the update!
db(collection).update({"_Id": ObjectId(object_id)}, !
{"$set": updates})!

mongo update() method


commits updates to the
database.
PATCHing
def patch_document(collection, original):!
(...)!
# Perform the update!
db(collection).update({"_Id": ObjectId(object_id)}, !
{"$set": updates})!

udpate() takes the unique Id


of the document to update
PATCHing
def patch_document(collection, original):!
(...)!
# Perform the update!
db(collection).update({"_Id": ObjectId(object_id)}, !
{"$set": updates})!

$set accepts a dict!


with the updates for the db
eg: {“active”: False}.

updates are atomic


POST
Creating Resources
POSTing
Take #1

def post(collection):!
(...)!
for key, item in docs.items():!
response[ID_FIELD] = db(collection).insert(item)

push document and get its


ObjectId back from Mongo.
like other CRUD operations,
inserting is trivial in
mongo.
POSTing
Take #2

Bulk inserts!!
(let’s look at the code)
after a lot of tinkering
we released an ambitious open source project
Eve
REST API Framework powered by
Flask, MongoDB and good intentions

python-eve.org
Beta 0.2

• 1.000+ stargazers • 24 contributors


• 120 forks • 7.935 downloads
Eve Extensions
contributed by the community

• Eve-ElasticSearch
• Eve-SQLAlchemy
• Eve-Docs
• Eve-Mocks
Wanna see it running?
Hopefully it won’t explode right into my face
Initial draft

Clients API Database


iOS

Android
RESTful !
“Cloud”
Website Web API
Desktop Client

? ?
Production

Clients API Database


iOS

Android
Adam! MongoDB
Website eve instance
Desktop Client
MongoDB Rocks!
your RESTful Web API
Thank you.
nicolaiarocci

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