Welcome to Tastypie!
====================

Tastypie is an webservice API framework for Django. It provides a convenient,
yet powerful and highly customizable, abstraction for creating REST-style
interfaces.

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   tutorial
   interacting
   settings
   non_orm_data_sources
   tools
   testing
   compatibility_notes

   resources
   bundles
   api
   fields
   caching
   validation
   authentication
   authorization
   serialization
   throttling
   paginator
   geodjango
   content_types

   cookbook
   debugging
   who_uses
   contributing


Getting Help
============

There are two primary ways of getting help. We have a `mailing list`_ hosted at
Google (http://groups.google.com/group/django-tastypie/) and an IRC channel
(`#tastypie on irc.freenode.net`_) to get help, want to bounce idea or
generally shoot the breeze.

.. _`mailing list`: http://groups.google.com/group/django-tastypie/
.. _#tastypie on irc.freenode.net: irc://irc.freenode.net/tastypie


Quick Start
===========

1. Add ``tastypie`` to ``INSTALLED_APPS``.
2. Create an ``api`` directory in your app with a bare ``__init__.py``.
3. Create an ``<my_app>/api/resources.py`` file and place the following in it::

    from tastypie.resources import ModelResource
    from my_app.models import MyModel


    class MyModelResource(ModelResource):
        class Meta:
            queryset = MyModel.objects.all()
            allowed_methods = ['get']

4. In your root URLconf, add the following code (around where the admin code might be)::

    from tastypie.api import Api
    from my_app.api.resources import MyModelResource

    v1_api = Api(api_name='v1')
    v1_api.register(MyModelResource())

    urlpatterns = patterns('',
      # ...more URLconf bits here...
      # Then add:
      (r'^api/', include(v1_api.urls)),
    )

5. Hit http://localhost:8000/api/v1/?format=json in your browser!


Requirements
============

Tastypie requires the following modules. If you use Pip_, you can install
the necessary bits via the included ``requirements.txt``:

Required
--------

* Python 2.6+
* Django 1.3+
* mimeparse 0.1.3+ (http://code.google.com/p/mimeparse/)

  * Older versions will work, but their behavior on JSON/JSONP is a touch wonky.

* dateutil (http://labix.org/python-dateutil) >= 1.5, < 2.0

Optional
--------

* python_digest (https://bitbucket.org/akoha/python-digest/)
* lxml (http://lxml.de/) if using the XML serializer
* pyyaml (http://pyyaml.org/) if using the YAML serializer
* biplist (http://explorapp.com/biplist/) if using the binary plist serializer

.. _Pip: http://pip.openplans.org/


Why Tastypie?
=============

There are other, better known API frameworks out there for Django. You need to
assess the options available and decide for yourself. That said, here are some
common reasons for tastypie.

* You need an API that is RESTful and uses HTTP well.
* You want to support deep relations.
* You DON'T want to have to write your own serializer to make the output right.
* You want an API framework that has little magic, very flexible and maps well to
  the problem domain.
* You want/need XML serialization that is treated equally to JSON (and YAML is
  there too).
* You want to support my perceived NIH syndrome, which is less about NIH and more
  about trying to help out friends/coworkers.


Reference Material
==================

* http://github.com/toastdriven/django-tastypie/tree/master/tests/basic shows
  basic usage of tastypie
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REST
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes
* http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt
* http://jacobian.org/writing/rest-worst-practices/


Running The Tests
=================

The easiest way to get setup to run Tastypie's tests looks like::

  $ git clone https://github.com/toastdriven/django-tastypie.git
  $ cd django-tastypie
  $ virtualenv env
  $ . env/bin/activate
  $ ./env/bin/pip install -U -r requirements.txt

Then running the tests is as simple as::

  # From the same directory as above:
  $ ./env/bin/pip install -U -r tests/requirements.txt
  $ cd tests
  $ ./run_all_test.sh

Tastypie is maintained with all tests passing at all times. If you find a
failure, please `report it`_ along with the versions of the installed software.

.. _`report it`: https://github.com/toastdriven/django-tastypie/issues


Commercial Support
==================

If you're using Tastypie in a commercial environment, paid support is available
from `Toast Driven`_. Services offered include:

* Advice/help with setup
* Implementation in your project
* Bugfixes in Tastypie itself
* Features in Tastypie itself

If you're interested, please contact Daniel Lindsley (daniel@toastdriven.com).

.. _`Toast Driven`: http://toastdriven.com/
