NUSProfs Backend

REST API backend for NUSProfs, a platform where NUS students can search for professors, view aggregated ratings, and share reviews of their teaching. The live API is hosted at nusprofs-api.onrender.com.

Features

• Professor search & profiles — search professors by name, view their details, modules taught, and aggregated review ratings
• Top professors — ranked listing of the highest-rated professors
• Module comparison — compare professors teaching the same module, filterable by academic year
• Reviews & replies — post, edit, and delete reviews with threaded replies and likes
• JWT authentication — registration, login, token refresh/verification, and logout with refresh-token blacklisting

Tech Stack

• Framework: Django 5.2 with Django REST Framework
• Authentication: SimpleJWT (access + refresh tokens with blacklist)
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Caching: Redis via django-redis
• Static files: WhiteNoise
• Deployment: Gunicorn on Render

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• PostgreSQL
• Redis (optional, for caching)

Setup

1. Clone the repository and create a virtual environment:

   git clone https://github.com/happyweijie/NUSProfs.git
   cd NUSProfs
   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate  # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

2. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Configure environment variables by copying the template:

   cp .env.example .env

   Generate a SECRET_KEY with:

   python -c "from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key; print(get_random_secret_key())"

   Then fill in the DEV_DB_* variables with your local PostgreSQL credentials (and REDIS_* if using caching).

4. Apply migrations and (optionally) load seed data:

   python manage.py migrate
   python manage.py loaddata data/seed_data.json

5. Start the development server:

   python manage.py runserver

   The server runs with development settings (NUSProfs.settings.dev) by default.

Running Tests

Tests run against a separate PostgreSQL database configured via the TEST_DB_* variables in .env (CI defaults: testdb / testuser / testpassword on localhost:5432).

DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=NUSProfs.settings.test python manage.py test

Tests also run automatically on GitHub Actions for every push and pull request to main.