Code duplication in API design for URL route functions vs. real world object methods

Question

I have code duplication in my API design for the object methods vs. the URL routing functions:

# door_model.py

class Door:                               
    def open(self):                       # "Door.open" written once...
       ...

# http_api.py (the HTTP server is separated from the real-world object models)

@app.route('/api/door/open')              # ... written twice
def dooropen():                           # ... written three times
    d.open()                              # ... written four times!

d = Door()

How to avoid this unnecessary duplication of names in a similar API design? (while keeping a separation between real-world object models vs. HTTP server).

Is there a general pattern to avoid unnecessary duplication of names when using an object model (with methods), and URL routes functions? (nearly a Model View Controller pattern)

See also Associate methods of an object to API URL routes with Python Flask.

Answer 1

If we declare a route for every model action and do the same things for each (in your case, call the corresponding method with or without parameter), it will duplicate the code. Commonly, people use design patterns (primarily for big projects) and algorithms to avoid code duplications. And I want to show a simple example that defines one generic route and handles all requests in one handler function.

Suppose we have the following file structure.

application/
├─ models/
│  ├─ door.py
│  ├─ window.py
├─ main.py

The prototype of the Door looks like

# door.py

class Door:

    def open(self):
        try:
            # open the door
            return 0
        except:
            return 1

    def close(self):
        try:
            # close the door
            return 0
        except:
            return 1

    def openlater(self, waitseconds=2):
        print("Waiting for ", waitseconds)
        try:
            # wait and open the door
            return 0
        except:
            return 1

Where I conditionally set exit codes of the C, 0 for success and 1 for error or failure.

We must separate and group the model actions into one as they have a common structure.

+----------+----------+------------+----------------------+
| API base |  model   | action     | arguments (optional) |
+----------+----------+------------+----------------------+
| /api     | /door    | /open      |                      |
| /api     | /door    | /close     |                      |
| /api     | /door    | /openlater | ?waitseconds=10      |
| /api     | /window  | /open      |                      |
| /api     | /<model> | /<action>  |                      |
+----------+----------+------------+----------------------+

After we separate our groups by usage interface, we can implement a generic handler for each.

Generic handler implementation

# main.py

from flask import Flask, Response, request
import json
from models.door import Door
from models.window import Window

app = Flask(__name__)

door = Door()
window = Window()

MODELS = {
    "door": door,
    "window": window,
}

@app.route("/api/<model>/<action>")
def handler(model, action):
    model_ = MODELS.get(model)
    action_ = getattr(model_, action, None)
    if callable(action_):
        try:
            error = action_(**request.args)
            if not error:
                return Response(json.dumps({
                    "message": "Operation succeeded"
                }), status=200, mimetype="application/json")
            return Response(json.dumps({
                "message": "Operation failed"
            }), status=400, mimetype="application/json")
        except (TypeError, Exception):
            return Response(json.dumps({
                "message": "Invalid parameters"
            }), status=400, mimetype="application/json")
    return Response(json.dumps({
        "message": "Wrong action"
    }), status=404, mimetype="application/json")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

So you can control the actions of the models by using different API paths and query parameters.

Answer 2

You can create dynamic routes. A dynamic route for your case would be api/door/<action>.

Create a route like this to have a dynamic url:

@app.route('api/door/<action:str>')
def door(action):
    
   door = Door()
   if action in door.actions:
       if action.lower() == 'open':
           door.open()
           r = 'oppened door'

       return r
        
   

Create a class variable called actions to make the code work. For example like this actions = ['open','close']