Bulk import and export in Rest API - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Bulk Import and Export with REST API

📖 Scenario: You work for a company that manages a list of products. You need to create a simple REST API to handle bulk import and export of product data in JSON format.This will help the company quickly add many products at once and also download all products easily.

🎯 Goal: Build a REST API with two endpoints:/import to accept a bulk list of products and store them./export to return all stored products as JSON.You will create the data storage, configure the API, write the core logic for import and export, and finally test the output.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an in-memory list called products to store product dictionaries

Create a configuration variable max_import_size to limit bulk import size

Write a POST endpoint /import that accepts JSON list of products and adds them to products if size is within max_import_size

Write a GET endpoint /export that returns all stored products as JSON

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Bulk import and export APIs are common in inventory management, e-commerce, and data migration tasks where many items need to be added or retrieved efficiently.

💼 Career

Understanding how to build bulk data endpoints is valuable for backend developers working with REST APIs, enabling efficient data handling and integration with other systems.

1

Create the initial data storage

Create an empty list called products to store product dictionaries.

Rest API

# Create an empty list called products
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list to hold multiple product items.

2

Add a configuration variable

Create a variable called max_import_size and set it to 5 to limit the number of products imported at once.

Rest API

products = []
# Create max_import_size variable and set it to 5
# Your code here

Need a hint?

This variable will help control how many products can be imported in one request.

3

Write the bulk import endpoint

Using Flask, create a POST endpoint /import that reads a JSON list of products from the request body. If the list length is less than or equal to max_import_size, add all products to the products list and return JSON {"status": "success"}. Otherwise, return JSON {"status": "error", "message": "Too many products"} with status code 400.

Rest API

products = []
max_import_size = 5

from flask import Flask, request, jsonify
app = Flask(__name__)

# Create POST /import endpoint
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use request.get_json() to get the JSON data sent by the client.

Check the length of the list before adding.

4

Write the bulk export endpoint and test output

Create a GET endpoint /export that returns all products stored in the products list as JSON. Then, print the output of calling app.test_client().get('/export').get_json() to show the exported products.

Rest API

products = []
max_import_size = 5

from flask import Flask, request, jsonify
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/import', methods=['POST'])
def import_products():
    new_products = request.get_json()
    if not isinstance(new_products, list):
        return jsonify({"status": "error", "message": "Invalid data format"}), 400
    if len(new_products) <= max_import_size:
        products.extend(new_products)
        return jsonify({"status": "success"})
    else:
        return jsonify({"status": "error", "message": "Too many products"}), 400

# Create GET /export endpoint and print exported products
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Return the products list as JSON in the /export endpoint.

Use Flask's test client to simulate requests and print the exported data.