RequestMap

RequestMap is a Python3 microframework designed with compatibility and portability in mind. It utilises a plugin-based system to allow your application to easily integrate with other frameworks such as Flask without the need of changing the code. Website.

Installing RequestMap

RequestMap now available on pip.

Using pip

pip3 install RequestMap

RequestMap is currently under active development.

Set it up as a submodule

In your project folder, cloning the repository

git clone https://github.com/yyjlincoln/RequestMap

Then, install the dependencies

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Finally, add requestmap as a submodule

git submodule add https://github.com/yyjlincoln/RequestMap RequestMap

Learn more about submodules

You might wish to learn more about git submodules here.

The Concepts of RequestMap

RequestMap uses a plugin-based system. It consists of three main components:

• Protocol
• ResponseHandler
• Validator

Protocol

A Protocol is the part of the plugin that handles incoming requests and pass it down to RequestMap's internal handlers. An instance of RequestMap (aka EndpointMap) can have multiple protocols registered. A protocol must inherit from RequestMap.Protocols.ProtocolBase.StandardProtocolHandler.

You can use a Protocol through:

from RequestMap import Map
# Initialise an instance of RequestMap (aka EndpointMap)
API = Map()

# Initialise the protocol instance
SomeProtocolInstance = SomeProtocol(someConfiguration=1, anotherConfiguration=True)

# Use the protocol
API.useProtocol(SomeProtocolInstance)

For more on Protocol, check out RequestMap.Protocols.ProtocolBase.StandardProtocolHandler.

ResponseHandler

A ResponseHandler is an optional function that standardises the response from your view function. An instance of RequestMap (aka EndpointMap) can only have ONE ResponseHandler. It must inherit from RequestMap.Response.ResponseBase.StandardResponseHandler.

The ResponseHandler can be obtained in a view function by specifying a makeResponse keyword-only argument. For example:

@API.endpoint('addition', {
    'authrequired': False,
    'httproute': '/addition',
    'httpmethods': ['GET']
}, a=float, b=float)
def addition(a, b, makeResponse):
    return makeResponse(code=0, message="succeeded", result=a+b)

Validator

A Validator validates the incoming request. This can be useful for authentication purposes (for example, by validating userId and token and rejecting the request by throwing RequestMap.Exceptions.ValidationError if the credentials are invalid). It must inherit from RequestMap.Validators.ValidatorBase.StandardValidator.

For more on Validator, check out RequestMap.Validators.ValidatorBase.StandardValidator

Using RequestMap

Setting up an endpoint

You can set up an endpoint using the decorator, RequestMap.EndpointMap.Map().endpoint(). For simplicity, we'll call RequestMap.EndpointMap.Map(), which is an instance, "API (initialised above)".

@API.endpoint(<endpointIdentifier>, metadata = {}, **TypeConversionFunctions) [Decorator]

• endpointIdentifier: The identifier of the endpoint. It must be unique.

• metadata: A dictionary of metadata about the endpoint. This is available to Validators so you can configure the Validator on a per-route basis.

• **TypeConversionFunctions: Keyword arguments that specify the type conversion functions for the data of the endpoint. It follows a format of <dataName>=<callable>, for example, aNumber=float. If dataName does not exist in the data then the conversion function will not be called; otherwise it will be called and the data of that key will be replaced by the return value of the type conversion function.

def theViewFunction(<nonOptionalArgs>, <optionalArgsWithDefaultValue> = <defaultValue>):

Following the decorator, the view function can specify which data is required and which are optional. RequestMap will automatically retrieve the values from the request, convert it using the type conversion functions, and pass it to the view function. If the data does not exist and it's nonOptional, then an Exceptions.MissingParameter exception will be raised which can be captured by the responseHandler function.

Lifecycle & Internal Logic

Alternatively, you can view the PNG version of this flowchart here

Example

from utils.RequestMap.Protocols.Flask import HTTPViaFlask
from utils.RequestMap.Response.JSON import JSONStandardizer

API.useProtocol(FlaskProtocol(port=5000, ALLOW_DEV_SERVER=True)) # Launches the dev server. For production, use FlaskProtocol().app with programs such as Gunicorn. 
API.useResponseHandler(JSONStandardizer({
    0: "succeeded",
    -1: "failed",
    -2: "unauthorised",
})

@API.endpoint('addition', {
    'authrequired': False,
    'httproute': '/addition',
    'httpmethods': ['GET']
}, a=float, b=float)
def addition(a, b, makeResponse):
    return makeResponse(code=0, result=a+b)

See it in action

The RequestMap framework is used by a few projects. Check them out here:

• NowAskMe-Server
• Time2Meet-Server

License

RequestMap is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 .

Copyright ©️ 2021-present @yyjlincoln