I created a Django REST API using serializers, viewsets and routers. My end points looks something like this:
http://www.website.com/api/items
http://www.website.com/api/items/available
serializer.py (omitting imports)
class ItemSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = Item
fields = '__all__'
viewsets.py (omitting imports)
class ItemViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
queryset = Item.objects.all()
serializer_class = ItemSerializer
@action(methods=['GET'], detail=False)
def most_expensive(self, request):
query = self.get_queryset().order_by('price').last()
serialized = self.serializer_class(query)
return Response(serialized.data)
Now I want to able to access this API from my views.py to render the HTML with the available items: This is the way im doing it right now:
views.py (omitting imports)
class ProductListView(View):
template = 'store/product_list.html'
def get(self, request):
items = requests.get('http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/items/available')
context = {'items': items}
return render(request, self.template, context=context)
Using the requests modules I have a couple of concerns, after measuring I noticed there is a 0.015 second delay for that request to go through and if I ever change the API endpoint I would have to adjust it here since its hard coded.
I can get my items using:
Item.objects.filter(available=True)
Which gives me the result pretty much instantly but I'm writing all the queries twice (once in my API and once in my views.py)
Is there a better way of doing this like calling the viewset class directly and getting the data from there?
Many thanks!
Calling the API endpoint in the same app is not considered a good practise.
An option would be to call your viewset method directly, like in https://stackoverflow.com/a/51149806/290036
The other one that I recommend is to use the same codebase for your API and for the view.
def get_avaialble_items():
items = Item.objects.filter(available=True)
...
return items
# Use get_avaialble_items both in ItemViewSet and ProductListView