Django REST Framework: Introduction

DRF is the most popular package for building REST APIs in Django.

Installation

pip install djangorestframework

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'rest_framework',
]

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework.authentication.SessionAuthentication',
        'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
    ],
    'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework.permissions.IsAuthenticated',
    ],
    'DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS': 'rest_framework.pagination.PageNumberPagination',
    'PAGE_SIZE': 20,
}

Serializer

# tasks/serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Task

class TaskSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Task
        fields = ['id', 'title', 'status', 'priority', 'created_at']
        read_only_fields = ['id', 'created_at']

APIView — Simple Approach

from rest_framework.views import APIView
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework import status

class TaskListAPIView(APIView):
    def get(self, request):
        tasks = Task.objects.all()
        serializer = TaskSerializer(tasks, many=True)
        return Response(serializer.data)

    def post(self, request):
        serializer = TaskSerializer(data=request.data)
        if serializer.is_valid():
            serializer.save()
            return Response(serializer.data, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
        return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

ViewSet — Full CRUD

from rest_framework import viewsets
from rest_framework.permissions import IsAuthenticated

class TaskViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = Task.objects.all()
    serializer_class = TaskSerializer
    permission_classes = [IsAuthenticated]

    def get_queryset(self):
        return Task.objects.filter(owner=self.request.user)

Router

from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter

router = DefaultRouter()
router.register('tasks', TaskViewSet)

urlpatterns = [path('api/', include(router.urls))]
# GET/POST  /api/tasks/
# GET/PUT/PATCH/DELETE  /api/tasks/{id}/