REST APIs Python Flask: Docker, AWS, Git and SQLAlchemy

Set up a robust local development environment for Python by choosing an IDE such as PyCharm, installing Python on macOS or Windows, and enabling linting, debugging, and workflow guidance.

Download PyCharm community edition for your OS (macOS or Windows) from the provided link, selecting Intel or Apple Silicon appropriately; note the professional version is a paid trial.

Install PyCharm on macOS, set up a new Python project with the correct Python version, and run a hello world program to verify the IDE is ready.

Explore the concept of an application programming interface (API) as a messenger between your program and external systems, showing how requests follow rules to receive data or error messages.

Explore API endpoints as location-like URLs, learn to make requests with Python requests, understand JSON format and key-value pairs, and interpret a 200 response.

Learn to interpret api response codes from 1xx to 5xx, handle exceptions with raise_for_status, and extract json data using response.json() to access keys like setup and punchline.

Learn how to authenticate with api providers using an api key, navigate free and paid tiers, obtain and use keys, and call endpoints with parameters to access valuable data.

Learn how to use environment variables to securely manage the OpenWeatherMap API key, export variables in the shell, and access them with os.environ.get in Python projects.

Apply the python requests library to perform http post requests, sending json data to an external server and checking for success with status 201 using jsonplaceholder for testing.

explore put, patch, and delete requests and how they update external data, with put sending all fields, patch sending only changed fields, and delete using an id parameter.

Learn what REST means and how to design a RESTful API with HTTP verbs and routes, mapping get, post, put, patch, and delete to CRUD and resource endpoints.

Develop a simple Flask API by defining routes with decorators, add a /simple endpoint, and test using Postman to perform get and other CRUD operations.

Modify the Flask API to return JSON instead of plain text, using key-value pairs like message or text, restart the server, and verify JSON output in Postman.

Return JSON responses with proper http status codes in Flask, such as 200, 201, and 404. Create routes that emit a JSON message and set the status code explicitly.

Learn how to pass URL parameters to a Flask API using request.args, access name and age, convert age to int, and return dynamic JSON messages based on the age condition.

Utilize Flask route variables to create clean, dynamic URLs by declaring path parameters like /api/variables/<name>/<int:age>, and access them as function arguments.

Explore sqlite, a small, fast, serverless relational database management system implemented as a C library. Use it in Python with sqlite3, store data on disk locally, and avoid server setup.

Learn how to install and use the SQLite browser to create and open a SQLite database, define tables, browse data, and run SQL statements.

Explore SQLAlchemy, a popular Python ORM for relational databases, including SQLAlchemy Core and ORM, the SQL expression language, and how they let you query and manipulate data with Python.

Explore the SQLAlchemy ORM mapping of Python classes to database tables. Set up the engine, define the declarative base, and create an employees table in SQLite.

Learn to insert data into a database with SQLAlchemy ORM by creating an employees object, binding an engine to a session maker, then add to the session and commit.

Retrieve data from a database using the SQLAlchemy ORM by querying with a session, filtering, and iterating over employee objects to access id, name, and position.

Explore how to use SQLAlchemy ORM filter methods with operators like =, !=, like, in, and, or to query employees by id and name, including starts with patterns.

Learn to update table rows with SQLAlchemy ORM by assigning new values to attributes, querying data, and committing to persist changes, including using update with a dictionary.

Create a projects table linked to employees with a foreign key and SQLAlchemy relationship. Demonstrates bidirectional mapping via back_populates and inserts sample data with session.add and commit.

Learn how to join employees and projects using SQLAlchemy ORM, build relationship-based queries with filter and join methods, and retrieve and display related data.

Learn how to integrate a Flask API with a database using SQLite and SQLAlchemy ORM. Configure Flask-SQLAlchemy and initialize models to support create, read, update, and delete operations.

Learn how to use the flask command line interface to manage a SQLAlchemy database by creating, dropping, and seeding data with CLI commands, including USA, Germany, and a test user.

Learn to create a Flask GET route to fetch countries from a database, handle JSON serialization with marshmallow, and convert SQLAlchemy objects to JSON to avoid serialization errors.

Use Flask marshmallow to serialize SQLAlchemy objects into JSON, solving type errors, by defining user and country schemas and returning marshalled data in a Flask-RESTful route.

Learn to implement a get method for a single country by id, using a country details route, SQLAlchemy filter by id, and marshmallow serialization, with 404 not found handling.

Implement a Flask post route at /country to add a new country using form data or JSON. Check duplicates with SQLAlchemy, then commit and return 201 or 409.

Create a Flask post route named country one that parses json data with request.get_json, validates input, checks for existing country, adds a country to database, and test it with Postman.

Define a patch route in Flask to update a country by id with json data, update only provided fields, commit changes, and return 200 or 404.

Learn to declare Flask routes using conventional app.route or direct method names like app.get and app.post, test with postman, and return dict or json, with country examples.

Structure a scalable Flask API by organizing code into app, controllers, models, and schemas, and by modularizing with init, run, and CLI commands using SQLAlchemy and Marshmallow.

Learn to implement basic authentication in a Flask API, enabling user registration and login, hash passwords with sha-256 using werkzeug, and protect routes with HTTP basic auth and SQLAlchemy.

Explore implementing JSON web tokens (JWT) in Flask API: create a login route, issue tokens with a secret key, store on the client, and protect routes with Flask JWT Extended.

Secure Flask APIs with Flask-JWT by obtaining a login token in Postman and protecting routes with a bearer token in the authorization header.