Flask-Marshmallow

Flask + marshmallow for beautiful APIs

Flask-Marshmallow is a thin integration layer for Flask (a Python web framework) and marshmallow (an object serialization/deserialization library) that adds additional features to marshmallow, including URL and Hyperlinks fields for HATEOAS-ready APIs. It also (optionally) integrates with Flask-SQLAlchemy.

Get it now

pip install flask-marshmallow

Create your app.

from flask import Flask
from flask_marshmallow import Marshmallow

app = Flask(__name__)
ma = Marshmallow(app)

Write your models.

from your_orm import Model, Column, Integer, String, DateTime


class User(Model):
    email = Column(String)
    password = Column(String)
    date_created = Column(DateTime, auto_now_add=True)

Define your output format with marshmallow.

class UserSchema(ma.Schema):
    class Meta:
        # Fields to expose
        fields = ("email", "date_created", "_links")

    # Smart hyperlinking
    _links = ma.Hyperlinks(
        {
            "self": ma.URLFor("user_detail", values=dict(id="<id>")),
            "collection": ma.URLFor("users"),
        }
    )


user_schema = UserSchema()
users_schema = UserSchema(many=True)

Output the data in your views.

@app.route("/api/users/")
def users():
    all_users = User.all()
    return users_schema.dump(all_users)


@app.route("/api/users/<id>")
def user_detail(id):
    user = User.get(id)
    return user_schema.dump(user)


# {
#     "email": "fred@queen.com",
#     "date_created": "Fri, 25 Apr 2014 06:02:56 -0000",
#     "_links": {
#         "self": "/api/users/42",
#         "collection": "/api/users/"
#     }
# }