ASWP-API

Flask REST API for Animals Sales Web Project

✅ HTTP Standards Compliant: This API now follows proper REST conventions - GET requests don't include request bodies and are fully browser-compatible.

Project setup

Instructions on how to start the API

Python

To start this project you need python>=3.9

Virtual environment

Create and activate virtual environment for the project

# Create virtual environment
python3 -m venv .venv

# Activate virtual environment (Linux/macOS)
source .venv/bin/activate

# Activate virtual environment (Windows)
# .venv\Scripts\activate

Requirements

Install project requirements from requirements.txt file using pip

pip install -r requirements.txt 

Configuration

The API uses SQLite database by default. Configuration is stored in api/config.ini.

CORS Configuration

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) is configured in api/config.ini:

[CORS]
; Allowed origins for CORS (comma-separated)
; Use * for all origins in development, specific domains for production
ORIGINS = http://localhost:3000,http://localhost:8000,http://127.0.0.1:3000,http://127.0.0.1:8000,http://localhost:5000,http://127.0.0.1:5000
; Set to true to support credentials (cookies, authorization headers)
SUPPORTS_CREDENTIALS = true

[WEBSERVER]
; Configuration for the HTML file server
HOST = 127.0.0.1
PORT = 8000

For Production: Replace the ORIGINS with your actual domain(s):

ORIGINS = https://yourdomain.com,https://www.yourdomain.com

Testing

Test if code is working properly in your new environment

cd api
python -m unittest -v tests.py

Successful testing result example

Starting the Application

1. Start the API Server

cd api
python main.py

Or using Flask CLI:

cd api
export FLASK_APP=main.py
flask run

The API will be available at: http://127.0.0.1:5000

2. Start the Frontend Web Server

In a separate terminal, run the web server to serve the HTML interface:

python webserver.py

The frontend will be available at: http://127.0.0.1:8000

Or you can open index.html directly in your browser (may have CORS limitations).

3. Testing with Different Tools

• Browser: Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000 for the web interface
• Postman: Use http://127.0.0.1:5000 as the base URL for API calls
• cURL: Direct API calls to http://127.0.0.1:5000

CORS Support

✅ Fully CORS-enabled for:

• Local development (localhost, 127.0.0.1)
• Browsers with credentials support
• Postman and other API testing tools
• Production deployments (configure origins in config.ini)

API routes and usage examples

Here you can find list of routes and usage examples with Python 3 and requests library for this API

List

Method	Route	Description	Auth Required
GET	/animals	Get full list of animals	No
GET	/animals/<int:id>	Get detailed information about an animal	No
GET	/centers	Get full list of centers	No
GET	/centers/<int:id>	Get detailed information about an center	No
GET	/species	Get full list of species	No
GET	/species/<int:id>	Get detailed information about an specie	No
POST	/login	Get JWT token	No
POST	/register	Register new center	No
POST	/animals	Create new animal	Yes
POST	/species	Create new specie	Yes
PUT	/animals/<int:id>	Update animal	Yes
DELETE	/animals/<int:id>	Delete animal	Yes

Examples

POST Requests

Center login

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/login"

payload = {
    "login": "your_login",
    "password": "your_password"
}
headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}

response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
print(response.text)

Center register

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/register"

payload = {
    "login": "new_login",
    "password": "new_password",
    "name": "Center Name",
    "address": "Center Address"
}
headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}

response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
print(response.text)

Add animal (requires JWT token)

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/animals/"

payload = {
    "name": "Animal Name",
    "specie": 1,
    "age": 5,
    "price": 500.50
}
headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN_HERE'
}

response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
print(response.text)

Add specie (requires JWT token)

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/species"

payload = {
    "name": "Specie name",
    "price": 123.0,
    "description": "Specie description"
}
headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN_HERE'
}

response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
print(response.text)

GET Requests

Full list of animals

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/animals/"

response = requests.get(url)
print(response.text)

Animal by ID

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/animals/1"

response = requests.get(url)
print(response.text)

Full list of centers

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/centers"

response = requests.get(url)
print(response.text)

Center by ID

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/centers/1"

response = requests.get(url)
print(response.text)

Full list of species

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/species"

response = requests.get(url)
print(response.text)

Specie by ID

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/species/1"

response = requests.get(url)
print(response.text)

PUT Requests

Update animal (requires JWT token)

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/animals/1"

payload = {
    "name": "Updated animal name"
}
headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN_HERE'
}

response = requests.put(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
print(response.text)

DELETE Requests

Delete animal (requires JWT token)

import requests

url = "http://127.0.0.1:5000/animals/1"

headers = {
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN_HERE'
}

response = requests.delete(url, headers=headers)
print(response.text)

Authentication Flow

1. Register a new center using /register (POST)
2. Login using /login (POST) to get JWT token
3. Use the JWT token in Authorization: Bearer <token> header for protected endpoints

Error Handling

The API returns appropriate HTTP status codes:

• 200: Success
• 401: Unauthorized (invalid credentials or missing/invalid JWT)
• 403: Forbidden (not authorized to perform action)
• 404: Resource not found
• 409: Conflict (e.g., login already exists)

Development Notes

• Database: SQLite (development) - located at api/database.sqlite
• Logs: Written to api/ASWP-API.log
• JWT tokens are required for creating, updating, and deleting resources
• Centers can only modify their own animals