📘 Django – Guide 14: Rest API Consumer

This guide walks you through setting up a Django application to consume data from an external REST API. You will learn how to fetch data from an external API (in this case, a public API that provides a list of books) and display it in your Django application.

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🎯 Objectives

By the end of this guide, you will:

• ✅ Set up a Django app to consume data from an external API
• ✅ Use the requests library to make API requests
• ✅ Display fetched data in a Django template
• ✅ Learn how to display the data in a table format using DataTables
• ✅ Optionally, handle errors when the API is unavailable

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📁 Project Structure

project_folder/
├── manage.py
├── core/
│   ├── settings.py              ← Settings for the project configuration
│   └── urls.py                  ← Core URL routing
│
├── apps/
│   ├── api/
│   ├── consumer/                ← New app for consuming external API
│   │   ├── migrations/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   ├── models.py            ← Optional if needed
│   │   ├── views.py             ← Logic for fetching API data and rendering it
│   │   └── urls.py              ← URLs for the consumer app
│

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1️⃣ Create the Consumer App

If you haven’t already created the consumer app, use the following commands:

# Create the app
python manage.py startapp consumer

# Move it to the apps folder
mv consumer apps/

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2️⃣ Install Required Packages

Make sure that you have the requests library installed, as it will be used to fetch data from the external API.

pip install requests

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3️⃣ Configure Settings

In the settings.py file, add the new consumer app and rest_framework to the INSTALLED_APPS list:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # Other apps
    'apps.api',
    'rest_framework',
    'apps.consumer',  # Add this line
]

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4️⃣ Update URLs

In the urls.py file of the core folder (core/urls.py), add a new path for the consumer app:

urlpatterns = [
    # Other paths
    path('consumer/', include('apps.consumer.urls')),  # Consumer path for Rest API Framework
]

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5️⃣ Create Views to Consume the API

In the apps/consumer/views.py file, use the requests library to fetch data from the external API:

import requests
from django.shortcuts import render

def index(request):
    # Fetch data from the external API
    api_url = "https://padiks.pythonanywhere.com/api/books/"
    response = requests.get(api_url)

    if response.status_code == 200:
        # Since the API returns a list of books, we can directly assign the list to books_data
        books_data = response.json()  # No need to use .get() here, as the response is a list
        context = {
            'title': 'Books List',
            'books': books_data,  # Passing the list directly
        }
    else:
        context = {
            'title': 'Books List',
            'books': [],
            'error': 'Failed to fetch data from API'
        }

    return render(request, 'consumer/index.html', context)

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6️⃣ Create the Consumer URLs

In the apps/consumer/urls.py file, map the index view to a URL:

from django.urls import path
from . import views

app_name = 'consumer'

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.index, name='index'),
]

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7️⃣ Create the Template for Displaying Data

In the apps/consumer/templates/consumer/index.html file, display the fetched data in a table format:

{% extends 'base.html' %}

{% block title %}{{ title }} - Rest API Consumer{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
<div class="card shadow-lg p-4 mb-3">
    <h4 class="mb-4 text-center">{{ title }} - Rest API Consumer</h4>

    {% if error %}
        <div class="alert alert-danger">{{ error }}</div>
    {% endif %}

    <div class="mb-3 d-flex flex-wrap align-items-center gap-2">
        <a href="https://padiks.pythonanywhere.com/api/books/" 
           class="btn btn-success btn-sm" 
           style="position: absolute; right: 25px; margin-bottom:10px;" 
           title="Books List - Fetched from External API">
           Rest API Framework
        </a>
    </div>

    <div class="table-responsive">
        <table id="itemsTable" class="table table-sm table-striped table-bordered">
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th>ID</th>
                    <th>Title</th>
                    <th>Author</th>
                    <th>Published Date</th>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                {% if books %}
                    {% for book in books %}
                    <tr>
                        <td>{{ book.id }}</td>
                        <td>{{ book.title }}</td>
                        <td>{{ book.author }}</td>
                        <td>{{ book.published_date }}</td>
                    </tr>
                    {% endfor %}
                {% else %}
                    <tr>
                        <td colspan="4">No books available.</td>
                    </tr>
                {% endif %}
            </tbody>
        </table>
    </div>
</div>
{% endblock %}

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8️⃣ Testing the Consumer

Once everything is set up, you can visit the URL for the consumer app, typically http://localhost:8000/consumer/, and you should see the list of books fetched from the external API displayed in a table.

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Summary

In Guide 14, we covered how to set up a Django app to consume data from an external API using the requests library. By following the steps above, we were able to display the books fetched from the external API (https://padiks.pythonanywhere.com/api/books/) in a table on our site.

You can easily extend this guide to consume other APIs, display more complex data, or implement error handling for various response scenarios.