Schema definitions in Rest API - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Building a Simple REST API Schema Definition

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple REST API for a bookstore. The API will handle book data with fields like title, author, and year published.

🎯 Goal: Build a schema definition for the book data using JSON format. This schema will help validate the data sent to the API.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a JSON schema object named book_schema with the required fields.

Add a title field of type string.

Add an author field of type string.

Add a year_published field of type integer.

Specify that all three fields are required.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

APIs use schemas to check that data sent by users is correct and complete before saving or processing it.

💼 Career

Knowing how to define and use schemas is important for backend developers and API designers to ensure data quality and prevent errors.

1

Create the base JSON schema object

Create a variable called book_schema and set it to an empty dictionary {}.

Rest API

book_schema = {}
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Start by creating an empty dictionary named book_schema.

2

Add basic schema properties

Add the keys "type" with value "object" and "properties" as an empty dictionary to book_schema.

Rest API

book_schema = {
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use keys "type" and "properties" inside book_schema.

3

Define the fields in properties

Inside book_schema["properties"], add keys "title", "author", and "year_published" with their types as "string", "string", and "integer" respectively.

Rest API

book_schema = {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        # Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Each field inside properties should be a dictionary with a "type" key.

4

Add required fields list

Add a key "required" to book_schema with a list value containing "title", "author", and "year_published".

Rest API

book_schema = {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "title": {"type": "string"},
        "author": {"type": "string"},
        "year_published": {"type": "integer"}
    },
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

The required key should list all fields that must be present.