301 and 302 redirects in Rest API - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Handling 301 and 302 Redirects in a REST API

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple REST API server that handles URL redirects. Some URLs should permanently redirect to a new location (301), while others should temporarily redirect (302).

🎯 Goal: Create a Python REST API using Flask that returns 301 or 302 redirects based on the requested URL.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called redirects with URLs as keys and tuples as values. Each tuple contains the target URL and the redirect type (301 or 302).

Create a variable called default_redirect that holds the default redirect URL and type.

Write a Flask route /redirect/<path> that checks if the path is in redirects and returns the correct redirect response.

If the path is not found, redirect to default_redirect URL with its redirect type.

Print the redirect status code and target URL in the response.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web servers and APIs often need to redirect old URLs to new ones, either permanently (301) or temporarily (302). This helps users and search engines find the right pages.

💼 Career

Understanding how to implement redirects is important for backend developers, web developers, and DevOps engineers managing web traffic and SEO.

1

Create the redirects dictionary

Create a dictionary called redirects with these exact entries: 'old-home': ('/new-home', 301), 'temp-page': ('/temporary', 302), and 'old-contact': ('/contact-us', 301).

Rest API

# Create the redirects dictionary with exact entries
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a Python dictionary with keys as strings and values as tuples containing the target URL and redirect code.

2

Add the default redirect variable

Create a variable called default_redirect and set it to the tuple ('/home', 302).

Rest API

redirects = {
    'old-home': ('/new-home', 301),
    'temp-page': ('/temporary', 302),
    'old-contact': ('/contact-us', 301)
}

# Create the default_redirect variable
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Set default_redirect to a tuple with the URL '/home' and redirect code 302.

3

Create the Flask route for redirects

Import Flask and create an app. Write a route @app.route('/redirect/<path>') with a function redirect_url(path) that checks if path is in redirects. If yes, get the target URL and code from redirects[path]. Otherwise, use default_redirect. Return a Flask redirect response with the target URL and status code.

Rest API

redirects = {
    'old-home': ('/new-home', 301),
    'temp-page': ('/temporary', 302),
    'old-contact': ('/contact-us', 301)
}

default_redirect = ('/home', 302)

# Import Flask and create app
# Write the /redirect/ route
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use Flask's redirect() function with the target URL and status code.

4

Print redirect details on each request

Inside the redirect_url(path) function, before returning, add a print statement that outputs exactly: Redirecting to {target} with status {code} using an f-string.

Rest API

from flask import Flask, redirect

app = Flask(__name__)

redirects = {
    'old-home': ('/new-home', 301),
    'temp-page': ('/temporary', 302),
    'old-contact': ('/contact-us', 301)
}

default_redirect = ('/home', 302)

@app.route('/redirect/')
def redirect_url(path):
    if path in redirects:
        target, code = redirects[path]
    else:
        target, code = default_redirect
    # Print redirect details
    # Your code here
    return redirect(target, code)

Need a hint?

Use an f-string inside print() to show the target and code.