This is the 4th version of our AirBnB clone project. We will be using python3, RESTful API, MySQL, Flask, and jQuery AJAX. A complete full-stack web application, integrating a MySQL database and Flask RESTful API with a dynamic HTML5/CSS3/jQuery front-end.
It was based off the basic characteristics of the Airbnb platform.
The project was developed in several iterations, being V4 the last one. This iterations encompassed several concepts and integrations that will be explained below.
The first iteration of the project consisted on building an interactive console in order to allow for development testing.
The Console was coded in order to work with a temporary storage engine based on JSON, and included the next features:
- Create a new object (ex: a new User or a new Place)
- Retrieve an object from a file, a database etc…
- Do operations on objects (count, compute stats, etc…)
- Update attributes of an object
- Destroy an object
The console has 2 modes.
Interactive
$ ./console.py
(hbnb) help
Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF help quit
(hbnb)
(hbnb)
(hbnb) quit
$
Non Interactive
$ echo "help" | ./console.py
(hbnb)
Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF help quit
(hbnb)
$
$ cat test_help
help
$
$ cat test_help | ./console.py
(hbnb)
Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF help quit
(hbnb)
$
This part of the project consisted in building the basic CSS and HTML source code.
This section consisted on the data modeling for the relational database in MySQL.
This iteration consisted on building the first approach to dynamic content for the application by using Flask and Jinja, and effectively having Server Side Render.
For this development, the MySQL database started being used in order to serve content to the client, and provide it with back end based features.
All of the HTML and CSS source code started being hosted in the server, and no items were hard coded, but instead produced through dynamic data integration.
Although the Server Side Render with Flask and Jinja was interesting, this section consisted on developing a different approach to dynamic content generation, starting with a RESTful API.
This Application Programming Interface was built with Flask and SQLAlchemy in order to work with MySQL and respond to HTTP requests.
The endpoints can be seen below.
GET /api/v1/status
**Returns the status of the API
GET /api/v1/stats
**Retrieves the number of each objects by type
GET /api/v1/states
**Retrieves the list of all State objects
GET /api/v1/states/<state_id>
**Retrieves a State object
DELETE /api/v1/states/<state_id>
**Deletes a State object
POST /api/v1/states
**Creates a State
PUT /api/v1/states/<state_id>
**Updates a State object
GET /api/v1/states/<state_id>/cities
**Retrieves the list of all City objects of a State
GET /api/v1/cities/<city_id>
**Retrieves a City object
DELETE /api/v1/cities/<city_id>
Deletes a City object
POST /api/v1/states/<state_id>/cities
Creates a City
PUT /api/v1/cities/<city_id>
Updates a City object
GET /api/v1/amenities
**Retrieves the list of all Amenity objects
GET /api/v1/amenities/<amenity_id>
**Retrieves a Amenity object
DELETE /api/v1/amenities/<amenity_id>
**Deletes a `menity object
POST /api/v1/amenities
**Creates a Amenity
PUT /api/v1/amenities/<amenity_id>
**Updates a Amenity object
GET /api/v1/users
**Retrieves the list of all User objects
GET /api/v1/users/<user_id>
**Retrieves a User object
DELETE /api/v1/users/<user_id>
**Deletes a User object
POST /api/v1/users
**Creates a User
PUT /api/v1/users/<user_id>
**Updates a User object
GET /api/v1/cities/<city_id>/places
**Retrieves the list of all Place objects of a City
GET /api/v1/places/<place_id>
**Retrieves a Place object
DELETE /api/v1/places/<place_id>
**Deletes a Place object
POST /api/v1/cities/<city_id>/places
**Creates a Place
PUT /api/v1/places/<place_id>
**Updates a Place object
GET /api/v1/places/<place_id>/reviews
**Retrieves the list of all Review objects of a Place
GET /api/v1/reviews/<review_id>
**Retrieves a Review object
DELETE /api/v1/reviews/<review_id>
**Deletes a Review object
POST /api/v1/places/<place_id>/reviews
**Creates a Review
PUT /api/v1/reviews/<review_id>
**Updates a Review object
GET /api/v1/places/<place_id>/amenities
**Retrieves the list of all Amenity objects of a Place
DELETE /api/v1/places/<place_id>/amenities/<amenity_id>
**Deletes a Amenity` object to a Place
POST /api/v1/places/<place_id>/amenities/<amenity_id>
**Link a Amenity object to a Place
POST /api/v1/places_search
**Retrieves all Place objects depending of the JSON in the body of the request.
GET /apidocs
**Gets the documentation of the API built in Flasgger
This was the final iteration of the project and consisted in changing the Server Side Render for Client Based Render using JavaScript with jQuery, and the RESTful API from before.
This was a big project that helped in understanding how a Fullstack application works. Some of the most challenging parts had to do with the Object Relational Mapping for the API, and the Client Based Render.
For future projects, this serves as a great base for beginning to understand other technologies such as React, NodeJS, and Mongo, among others.
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