Hacker News Case Study

This is a Django web application that retrieves data from Hacker News API and makes it easier to navigate the news items. It provides search and filter functionality and also enables clients, through three API endpoints, to create news items, modify and delete only the items they created and provide read-only access to news items generated from Hacker News API server.

Technologies

The following technologies were used in this project:

• HTML
• CSS
• Python
• Django
• Django REST Framework
• Hacker News API
• SQLite3

Requirements

Before starting, you need to have Git and Python installed.

Kindly ensure that you are in the root directory before running the following commands.

Create a virtual environment

python3 -m venv env

Activate the virtual environment

. env/bin/activate

Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

Make migrations

python manage.py makemigrations

Migrate apps and database

python manage.py migrate

Collect Static files

python manage.py collectstatic

Run Tests

python manage.py test

Fetch data from Hacker News API

python manage.py shell < hn_api.py

Start server

Open another terminal window, activate the virtual environment and run the following command:

. env/bin/activate && python manage.py runserver 8080

Endpoints

The endpoints, expected payloads, and responses are described below.

Get all news items

Request

GET api/v1/news/

curl -i -H 'Accept: application/json' http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/news/

Response

{
    "message": "success",
    "data": {
        "news": [
            [
        {
            "id": "c21b9f5f-72dd-4db7-8581-f49fcbba9087",
            "title": "4nm Mac ‘M2’ chip to arrive in second of half of 2022, and ‘M2 Pro’ in 2023",
            "author": "retskrad",
            "type": "story",
            "url": "https://9to5mac.com/2021/12/20/m2-m2-pro-chips-rumor/",
            "text": "",
            "score": 2,
            "is_from_api": true
        },
        {
            "id": "6793f01c-1ea0-409e-af2b-13785414368d",
            "title": "A Food App Has Made Its First Delivery in Space",
            "author": "rustoo",
            "type": "story",
            "url": "https://theswaddle.com/a-food-app-has-made-its-first-delivery-in-space/",
            "text": "",
            "score": 2,
            "is_from_api": true
        }
        ]
    },
    "errors": null
}

Create a news item

Request

POST api/v1/add-news

curl -i -H 'Accept: application/json' http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/add-news

Payload

{
    "title": <String>,
    "author": <String>,
    "type": <String>
    "text": <String>
    "score": <Integer>
}

Response

{
    "message": "success",
    "data": {
        "news": {
            "id": <UUID>,
            "title": <String>,
            "author": <String>,
            "type": <String>
            "url": <String>,
            "text": <String>
            "score": <Integer>,
            "is_from_api": <Boolean>
        }
    },
    "errors": null
}

Get a specific news item by its ID

Request

GET api/v1/news/<id>

curl -i -H 'Accept: application/json' http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/news/<id>

Response

{
    "message": "success",
    "data": {
        "news": {
            "id": <UUID>,
            "title": <String>,
            "author": <String>,
            "type": <String>
            "url": <String>,
            "text": <String>
            "score": <Integer>,
            "is_from_api": <Boolean>
        }
    },
    "errors": null
}

Update a news item

Request

PUT api/v1/news/<id>

curl -i -H 'Accept: application/json' http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/news/<id>

Payload

{
    "title": <String>,
    "author": <String>,
    "type": <String>
    "text": <String>
    "score": <Integer>
}

Response

{
    "message": "success",
    "data": {
        "news": {
            "id": <UUID>,
            "title": <String>,
            "author": <String>,
            "type": <String>
            "url": <String>,
            "text": <String>
            "score": <Integer>,
            "is_from_api": <Boolean>
        }
    },
    "errors": null
}

Delete a news item

Request

DELETE api/v1/news/<id>

curl -i -H 'Accept: application/json' http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/vi/news/<id>

Response

{
    "message": "success",
    "data": {
        "news": {}
    },
    "errors": null
}