🛒 Inventory Management System (Flask REST API)

📌 Overview

This project is a Flask-based REST API for managing inventory in a retail system. It allows users to perform full CRUD operations on products and integrates with the OpenFoodFacts API to fetch real-world product data using barcodes.

The system also includes a CLI (Command Line Interface) for user interaction and a testing suite to validate functionality.

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🚀 Features

✅ Inventory Management (CRUD)

• Add new items
• View all inventory items
• View a single item by ID
• Update item price and stock
• Delete items

🌐 External API Integration

• Fetch product details using barcode

• Retrieve:

  • Product name
  • Brand
  • Ingredients

💻 CLI Interface

• User-friendly terminal menu
• Perform all operations without a browser

🧪 Testing

• Unit tests using pytest

• Covers:

  • API endpoints
  • CRUD operations
  • External API route

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🛠️ Technologies Used

• Python 3
• Flask
• Requests
• Pytest

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📁 Project Structure

inventory-api/
│
├── app.py           # Main Flask API
├── inventory.py     # In-memory database (list)
├── cli.py           # Command-line interface
├── test_app.py      # Unit tests
├── requirements.txt # Dependencies
└── README.md        # Documentation

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⚙️ Installation & Setup

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/inventory-api.git
cd inventory-api

2. Create virtual environment

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate   # Linux/Mac
venv\Scripts\activate      # Windows

3. Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

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▶️ Running the Application

Start Flask server

python app.py

Server runs at:

http://127.0.0.1:5000/

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🌐 API Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/inventory	Get all items
GET	/inventory/	Get one item
POST	/inventory	Add item
PATCH	/inventory/	Update item
DELETE	/inventory/	Delete item
GET	/fetch/	Fetch product from API

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🧪 Testing the API

🔹 Browser (GET requests only)

Open:

http://127.0.0.1:5000/inventory
http://127.0.0.1:5000/fetch/737628064502

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🔹 CLI (Full interaction)

Run:

python cli.py

You can:

• Add items
• View inventory
• Update items
• Delete items
• Fetch product data

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🔹 Automated Tests

Run:

pytest

Expected output:

6 passed

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⚠️ Notes

• The inventory is stored in memory (resets when server restarts)
• External API may fail depending on network environment
• Error handling is implemented for API failures

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📈 Future Improvements

• Persistent database (SQLite/PostgreSQL)
• Web frontend (React)
• Authentication system
• Auto-save fetched products into inventory

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👤 Author

Samantha Bora

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