What is the preferred layout when dealing with apps using DjangoRestFramework for a ReSTful API?

Question

According to this StackOverflow post: DjangoRestFramework - How do I customize the frontend?

it says "Typically you want to put your DjangoRestFramework REST Api in something like /api". I'm not sure what this means, so I did some more browsing.

In this GitHub project: https://github.com/kevinastone/django-api-rest-and-angular there is an /example/ folder and inside the folder there is a folder called /api/ which has api.py and serializers.py. I've never come across a tutorial which ever told me to create an api.py file and to place an /api/ folder inside the app (it looks like the app is called "example" in the GitHub project).

I've watched this tutorial: https://godjango.com/41-start-your-api-django-rest-framework-part-1/ and it seems as if the instructor created an app called "api" which has serializers.py and urls.py. With that said, different tutorials show different things. What's the preferred way of creating a Django app which uses the DjangoRestFramework for a ReSTful API?

My end goal is to create a Django app with DjangoRestFramework and AngularJS on the frontend.

Answer 1

I'm sure you've already figured this out, but for other people that stumble upon this he's including his api as it's own django 'app', just like in the tutorial you mentioned. His file "api.py" is basically, for all intents and purposes, serving as what most tutorials call "views.py". But as it is where he declares the methods for his api, and not the applications views, calling it "api.py" is clear cut and makes sense. Doesn't matter what you call it so long as it's imported and used appropriately. The best way to make a rest framework is to use paths that are reflexive of their use case. 'api/post_images' for instance, would post an image and not post a comment or retrieve a user's profile information.

If you only have one rest api call, you may not be interested in holding your single api method in it's own designated file. But as your application grows the use this convention will prove its value.