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Backend - Trivia API

Setting up the Backend

Install Dependencies

  1. Python 3.9 - Follow instructions to install the latest version of python for your platform in the python docs

  2. Virtual Environment - We recommend working within a virtual environment whenever using Python for projects. This keeps your dependencies for each project separate and organized. Instructions for setting up a virual environment for your platform can be found in the python docs

  3. PIP Dependencies - Once your virtual environment is setup and running, install the required dependencies by navigating to the /backend directory and running:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Key Pip Dependencies

  • Flask is a lightweight backend microservices framework. Flask is required to handle requests and responses.

  • SQLAlchemy is the Python SQL toolkit and ORM we'll use to handle the lightweight SQL database. You'll primarily work in app.pyand can reference models.py.

  • Flask-CORS is the extension we'll use to handle cross-origin requests from our frontend server.

Set up the Database

With Postgres running, create a trivia database:

createdb trivia

Populate the database using the trivia.psql file provided. From the backend folder in terminal run:

psql trivia < trivia.psql

Run the Server

From within the ./src directory first ensure you are working using your created virtual environment.

To run the server, execute:

flask run --reload

The --reload flag will detect file changes and restart the server automatically.

To Do Tasks

These are the files you'd want to edit in the backend:

  1. backend/flaskr/__init__.py
  2. backend/test_flaskr.py

One note before you delve into your tasks: for each endpoint, you are expected to define the endpoint and response data. The frontend will be a plentiful resource because it is set up to expect certain endpoints and response data formats already. You should feel free to specify endpoints in your own way; if you do so, make sure to update the frontend or you will get some unexpected behavior.

  1. Use Flask-CORS to enable cross-domain requests and set response headers.
  2. Create an endpoint to handle GET requests for questions, including pagination (every 10 questions). This endpoint should return a list of questions, number of total questions, current category, categories.
  3. Create an endpoint to handle GET requests for all available categories.
  4. Create an endpoint to DELETE a question using a question ID.
  5. Create an endpoint to POST a new question, which will require the question and answer text, category, and difficulty score.
  6. Create a POST endpoint to get questions based on category.
  7. Create a POST endpoint to get questions based on a search term. It should return any questions for whom the search term is a substring of the question.
  8. Create a POST endpoint to get questions to play the quiz. This endpoint should take a category and previous question parameters and return a random questions within the given category, if provided, and that is not one of the previous questions.
  9. Create error handlers for all expected errors including 400, 404, 422, and 500.

Documenting your Endpoints

You will need to provide detailed documentation of your API endpoints including the URL, request parameters, and the response body.

Testing

Write at least one test for the success and at least one error behavior of each endpoint using the unittest library.

To deploy the tests, run

dropdb trivia_test
createdb trivia_test
psql trivia_test < trivia.psql
python test_flaskr.py

API Documentation

Endpoints

GET '/categories'

  • Fetches a dictionary of categories in which the keys are the ids and the value is the corresponding string of the category
  • Request Arguments: None
  • Returns: An object with a single key, categories, that contains an object of id: category_string and a sucess value.
  • Sample: curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/categories
{
  "categories": {
    "1": "Science", 
    "2": "Art", 
    "3": "Geography", 
    "4": "History", 
    "5": "Entertainment", 
    "6": "Sports"
  },
  "success": true
}

GET '/questions'

  • Fetches a paginated set of questions, a total number of questions, all categories and current category string.
  • Request Arguments: page - integer
  • Returns: An object with 10 paginated questions, total questions, a dictionary of all categories, current category string, and a sucess value.
  • Sample: curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/questions
{
  "categories": {
    "1": "Science",
    "2": "Art",
    "3": "Geography",
    "4": "History",
    "5": "Entertainment",
    "6": "Sports"
  },
  "current_category": "currentCategory",
  "questions": [
    {
      "answer": "Tom Cruise",
      "category": 5,
      "difficulty": 4,
      "id": 4,
      "question": "What actor did author Anne Rice first denounce, then praise in the role of her beloved Lestat?"
    },
    ......
    {
      "answer": "Agra",
      "category": 3,
      "difficulty": 2,
      "id": 15,
      "question": "The Taj Mahal is located in which Indian city?"
    }
  ],
  "success": true,
  "total_questions": 20
}

DELETE '/questions/${id}'

  • Deletes a specified question using the id of the question
  • Request Arguments: id - integer
  • Returns: Returns a success value.
  • Sample: curl -X DELETE http://127.0.0.1:5000/questions/5
{
  "success": true
}

POST '/questions'

  • Sends a post request to add a new question
  • Request Arguments: A json body containing, question - string, answer - string, difficulty - integer, category - integer
  • Returns: Returns a success value.
  • Sample: curl -X DELETE http://127.0.0.1:5000/questions -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"question": "In what year was the last World Cup?", "answer": "2018", "difficulty": 2, "category":6}'
{
  "success": true
}

POST '/questions'

  • Sends a post request in order to return any question for whom the search term is a substring of the question.
  • Request Arguments: A json body containing, searchTerm - string
  • Returns: any array of questions, a number of totalQuestions that met the search term, the current category string and a success value.
  • Sample: curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d'{"searchTerm":"title"}' http://127.0.0.1:5000/questions
{
  "current_category": "currentCategory",
  "questions": [
    {
      "answer": "Edward Scissorhands",
      "category": 5,
      "difficulty": 3,
      "id": 6,
      "question": "What was the title of the 1990 fantasy directed by Tim Burton about a young man with multi-bladed appendages?"
    }
  ],
  "success": true,
  "total_questions": 1
}

GET '/categories/${id}/questions'

Fetches questions for a cateogry specified by id request argument

  • Request Arguments: id - integer
  • Returns: An object with questions for the specified category, total questions, current category string, and a success value.
  • Sample: curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/categories/1/questions
{
  "current_category": "currentCategory",
  "questions": [
    {
      "answer": "The Liver",
      "category": 1,
      "difficulty": 4,
      "id": 20,
      "question": "What is the heaviest organ in the human body?"
    },
    {
      "answer": "Alexander Fleming",
      "category": 1,
      "difficulty": 3,
      "id": 21,
      "question": "Who discovered penicillin?"
    },
    {
      "answer": "Blood",
      "category": 1,
      "difficulty": 4,
      "id": 22,
      "question": "Hematology is a branch of medicine involving the study of what?"
    }
  ],
  "success": true,
  "total_questions": 3
}

POST '/quizzes'

  • Sends a post request in order to get the next question which is a random question within the given category (if provided), and that is not one of the previous questions.
  • Request Argument: A json body containing, previous_questions - array, quiz_category - dictionary
  • Returns: a single new question object and a success value.
  • Sample: curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d'{"previous_questions":[9], "quiz_category":{"id":0, "type":"no category"}}' http://127.0.0.1:5000/quizzes
{
  "question": {
    "answer": "Aurelia borealis",
    "category": 4,
    "difficulty": 3,
    "id": 23,
    "question": "What is the seventh wonder of the world?"
  },
  "success": true
}

Error Handling

Errors are returned as JSON objects in the following format:

{
    "success": False,
    "error": 404,
    "message": "resource not found"
}

The API will return three error types when requests fail:

  • 400: Bad Request
  • 404: Resource Not Found
  • 422: Not Processable
  • 405: Not Allowed