sandman documentation on pythonhosted.org

See the blogpost here

sandman "makes things REST". Have an existing database you'd like to expose via a REST API? Normally, you'd have to write a ton of boilerplate code for the ORM you're using.

We're programmers. We don't write boilerplate.

Here's what's required to create a REST API from an existing database using sandman:

from sandman import app, db

app.config['SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI'] = 'sqlite:///chinook'

from sandman.model import register, Model

class Artist(Model):
    __tablename__ = 'Artist'

class Album(Model):
    __tablename__ = 'Album'

class Playlist(Model):
    __tablename__ = 'Playlist'

register((Artist, Album, Playlist))

app.run()

Let's start our new API server and make a request:

/home/jeff/sandman >>> python runserver.py &
* Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/

/home/jeff/sandman >>> curl GET http://localhost:5000/artists

...
{
    "ArtistId": 273,
    "Name": "C. Monteverdi, Nigel Rogers - Chiaroscuro; London Baroque; London Cornett & Sackbu",
    "links": [
    {
        "rel": "self",
        "uri": "/artists/ArtistId"
    }
    ]
},
{
    "ArtistId": 274,
    "Name": "Nash Ensemble",
    "links": [
    {
        "rel": "self",
        "uri": "/artists/ArtistId"
    }
    ]
},
{
    "ArtistId": 275,
    "Name": "Philip Glass Ensemble",
    "links": [
    {
        "rel": "self",
        "uri": "/artists/ArtistId"
    }
    ]
}
]

With sandman, (almost) zero boilerplate code is required. Your existing database structure and schema is introspected and your database tables magically get a RESTful API. For each table, Sandman creates:

• proper endpoints
• support for a configurable set of HTTP verbs
  • GET
  • POST
  • PATCH
  • DELETE
• responses with appropriate rel links automatically
• essentially a HATEOAS-based service sitting in front of your database

Warning: Sandman is still very much a work in progress and is not suitable for use anywhere. Don't use it for anything important. It's also often changing in backwards incompatible ways.

pip install sandman. The requirements aren't set up on PyPI yet but that's easily taken care of below.

You'll need to pip install Flask-SQLAlchemy. OK, that takes care of the requirements...

Now you'll need to create one file with the following contents (which I call runserver.py):

from sandman.model import register, Model

# Insert Models here
# Register models here 
# register((Model1, Model2, Model3))

from sandman import app, db
app.config['SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI'] = '<your database connection string (using SQLAlchemy)'
app.run()

Then simply run

python runserver.py

and try curling your new REST API service!

Take a look in the sandman/test directory. The application found there makes use of the Chinook sample SQL database. The models file is identical to the code pasted above.

• Authentication
• Class specific validation
• More links automatically generated (i.e. links to related objects)