Fast API Project

REST API implementation for a basic social network.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Features
  • Database schema
• Getting Started
  • Installation
  • Configuration
• Usage
• API Documentation
• License

Introduction

[Ongoing unfinished project - this is a development version]

This project simulates a REST API implementation for a simple social network. This project is based on the freeCodeCamp's Python API Development course, and its purpose is to become acquainted with a series of concepts and tools such as:

• REST API architecture.
• MySQL database setup and integration.
• Database modelling tools: SQLALchemy and Alembic.
• Unit testing with Pytest.
• CI integration with GitHUb actions (and Jenkins).
• App deployment with Heroku.
• Containerization with Docker.

Features

Current:

• Python Fast API as the core of the API implementation.
• Pydantic validation for serialization and deserialization processes.
• Default password hashing.
• JWT token authentication.
• MySQL database setup.
• Database model and tables set via SQLAlchemy.
• Alembic for database related migrations.
• CORS implementation.
• Unit testing with Pytest.

Future:

• Production deployment with Heroku.
• Containerization with Docker of app and database.
• Continuous integration (CI) with GitHub Actions.

These tables are stored as CSV files in the 'data_sets' folder.

Database schema

The database schema, social_network, has currently, the following tables:

• users
• posts
• votes
• social_groups
• group_members

The data for these tables has been generated through multiples sources:

• List of posts (title) taken from the Data Science Stack Exchange database.
• Pseudo-random processes, e.g. voting users and post upvotes.
• Users names via randomwordgenerator
• Social groups information generated via ChatGPT (title and details).

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Support platforms for the project:

• Install poetry to isolate the required dependencies into a virtual environment (requirements.txt also available).
• Install MySQLto create a MySQL server and the project's database.
• [Optional] Install MySQL Workbench for an easier access to the database.
• Experiment and test the app with Postman.

Installation

• Generate a virtual environment and install requirements with poetry (Linux):

    cd [project_directory]
    poetry install
  

• Install MySQL and set up the database.

• [Optional] Create a connection to MySQL Workbench UI by setting (these are the same values that must be set in the .env file, to the exception of the connection name and method):

  • Connection Name
  • Connection Method
  • Hostname
  • Port
  • Username
  • Password
  • Default Schema

Importing the database:

• Create a new schema (or use the default schema).

• Run the following command (inside the main project folder)

    $ mysql -u [Username] -p [Schema] < mysql_dumps/social_network_28_11_2023_dump.sql
  

Alternative, import just he database schema without data, using Alembic:

$ cd app
$ alembic upgrade head

The database tables can be imported one by one using the CSV backup files in the 'data_sets' folder.

Configuration

Setting the environment variables

Env file environmental variables are set and validated via Pydantic in 'app/src/env_models.py'. config_path is an environment variable with the path to the folder containing the project .env file; dotenv_path is the full path for the .env file. Variables that must be set:

For database connection:

`USER_NAME`
`SECRET_KEY`
`PORT`
`HOST`
`DATABASE`

For authorization token creation:

`AUTH_SECRET_KEY`
`AUTH_ALGORITHM`
`AUTH_ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRE_MINUTES`

Usage

Note: the original (unhashed) passwords and usernames (emails) that are used as credentials to login as a user can be found in '/data_sets/user_credentials.csv'.

Examples of HTTP requests endpoints and purposes:

• Create/post a user's session: "localhost:8000/login"

• Get user information by user via

  • ID, e.g. get user with ID 1 : "localhost:8000/users/id/1"

• Name, e.g. get user Kim Kent : "localhost:8000/users/name/kim_kent"

• Replace users info with a PUT request: "localhost:8000/users/id/1"

• Delete user via, e.g.:

  • ID: "localhost:8000/users/id/1"
  • Name: "localhost:8000/users/name/kim_kent"

• Get users posts: "localhost:8000/posts/my_posts"

• Get any post by its ID; e.g. get post 1: "localhost:8000/posts/1"

• Update a user's post with a PATCH request: "localhost:8000/posts/1"

• Post a post: "localhost:8000/posts"

• Get user's social groups that he/she is a member or admin of: "localhost:8000/social_groups/my_social_groups"

• Create/post a social group (only for logged in users): "localhost:8000/social_groups"

• Post an upvote or a downvote: "localhost:8000/votes"

API Documentation

Fast API / OpenAPI generates two different interactive API documentation UI versions that can be accessed via the following end points (change port according to the one set in the .env file):

• Swagger UI: localhost:8000/docs
• ReDoc UI: localhost:8000/redoc

License

MIT license.