Why advanced DRF features matter in Django - See It in Action

Why advanced DRF features matter

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple API for a bookstore. You want to show how using advanced Django REST Framework (DRF) features can make your API better and easier to maintain.

🎯 Goal: Create a basic DRF API with a book list, then add a filter feature to show only books with more than 300 pages. This shows why advanced DRF features like filtering matter.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of books as Python dictionaries

Add a variable to set the minimum page count filter

Use a list comprehension to filter books with pages greater than the minimum

Return the filtered list in a DRF API view

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Filtering data in APIs is common in real-world apps like bookstores, libraries, or any service showing lists of items.

💼 Career

Understanding DRF filtering and API views is essential for backend developers building REST APIs with Django.

1

Create the initial book data

Create a variable called books that is a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary should have these exact entries: {'title': 'Book A', 'pages': 250}, {'title': 'Book B', 'pages': 320}, and {'title': 'Book C', 'pages': 150}.

Django

# Create the books list with 3 dictionaries
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list with three dictionaries exactly as shown.

2

Add a minimum page count filter variable

Create a variable called min_pages and set it to 300.

Django

books = [
    {'title': 'Book A', 'pages': 250},
    {'title': 'Book B', 'pages': 320},
    {'title': 'Book C', 'pages': 150}
]
# Create min_pages variable and set to 300
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just create a variable named min_pages and assign 300.

3

Filter books with pages greater than min_pages

Create a variable called filtered_books that uses a list comprehension to include only books from books where the pages value is greater than min_pages.

Django

books = [
    {'title': 'Book A', 'pages': 250},
    {'title': 'Book B', 'pages': 320},
    {'title': 'Book C', 'pages': 150}
]
min_pages = 300
# Use list comprehension to filter books with pages > min_pages
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list comprehension with book for book in books if book['pages'] > min_pages.

4

Create a simple DRF API view to return filtered books

Create a DRF API view function called book_list that returns a Response with filtered_books. Import Response from rest_framework.response and api_view from rest_framework.decorators. Use the @api_view(['GET']) decorator.

Django

books = [
    {'title': 'Book A', 'pages': 250},
    {'title': 'Book B', 'pages': 320},
    {'title': 'Book C', 'pages': 150}
]
min_pages = 300
filtered_books = [book for book in books if book['pages'] > min_pages]

# Import Response and api_view
# Create @api_view(['GET']) decorated function book_list returning Response(filtered_books)
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to import Response and api_view, then create a function book_list decorated with @api_view(['GET']) that returns Response(filtered_books).