prestans, a Python REST micro-framework

prestans is a WSGI (PEP-333) complaint micro-framework that allows you to rapidly build quality REST services by introducing a pattern of models, parsers and handlers and in turn taking care of boilerplate code. prestans is aimed towards turly Ajax applications where the client side is completely written in JavaScript using toolkits like Google Closure.

prestans is currently hosted on Github and distributed under the terms defined by the New BSD license. A list of current downloads is available here. We highly recommend using PyPI to install prestans.

• 1. Getting Started
  • 1.1. Features
  • 1.2. Installation
    • 1.2.1. Software Requirements
  • 1.3. Concepts
    • 1.3.1. Serializers
    • 1.3.2. REST Application
    • 1.3.3. Handlers
    • 1.3.4. Models
    • 1.3.5. Request Parsers
    • 1.3.6. Data Adapters
    • 1.3.7. Providers
• 2. Routing & Handling Requests
  • 2.1. Regex & URL design primer
  • 2.2. Defining your REST Application
    • 2.2.1. Configuring your WSGI environment
  • 2.3. API Request Lifecycle
  • 2.4. Accessing incoming parameters
  • 2.5. Writing Responses
    • 2.5.1. Pre-defined exceptions
• 3. Serializers
  • 3.1. Writing your own serializer
  • 3.2. Pairing it with your REST Application
• 4. Validating Requests
  • 4.1. Parameter Sets
  • 4.2. Request Body
  • 4.3. Making exceptions to the rule
    • 4.3.1. Request Attribute Filter
    • 4.3.2. Providing a Response Attribute Filter Template
• 5. Models
  • 5.1. Writing Models
    • 5.1.1. Defining Attributes
    • 5.1.2. To One Relationship
    • 5.1.3. To Many Relationship (using Arrays)
    • 5.1.4. Self References
  • 5.2. Special Types
    • 5.2.1. DateTime
    • 5.2.2. DataURLFile
  • 5.3. Using Models to write Responses
  • 5.4. Type Configuration Reference
    • 5.4.1. String
    • 5.4.2. Integer
    • 5.4.3. Float
    • 5.4.4. Boolean
    • 5.4.5. DataURLFile
    • 5.4.6. DateTime
  • 5.5. Collections
    • 5.5.1. Array
    • 5.5.2. Model
• 6. Securing your API
  • 6.1. Fitting into your environment
    • 6.1.1. Writing your own provider
    • 6.1.2. Working with Google AppEngine
  • 6.2. Attaching AuthContextProvider to Handlers
• 7. Extensions
  • 7.1. Data Adapters
    • 7.1.1. Pairing REST models to persistent models
    • 7.1.2. Adapting Models
• 8. Utilities
  • 8.1. prestans.util.signature
  • 8.2. API Blueprint
• 9. Thoughts on API design
  • 9.1. REST resources are not persistent models
  • 9.2. Collections & Entities
  • 9.3. Response Size does matter
• 10. Google Closure Library Extensions (incomplete)
  • 10.1. Installation
    • 10.1.1. Unit testing
  • 10.2. Extending JavaScript namespaces
  • 10.3. Types API
    • 10.3.1. Array
  • 10.4. REST Client
    • 10.4.1. Request Manager
    • 10.4.2. Composing a Request
    • 10.4.3. Reading a Response
  • 10.5. Code Generation
• 11. Demo Application (incomplete)
• 12. Reference Material
  • 12.1. WSGI
  • 12.2. Advanced Python
  • 12.3. Software
  • 12.4. Developer Tools

Getting Help

We encourge the use of our mailing lists (run on Google Groups) as the primary method of getting help. You can also write the developers through contact information our website.

• Discuss general discussion, help, suggest a new feature.
• Announcements security / release announcements.

Reporting Issues

We prefer the use of our Issue Tracker on Google Code, to triage feature requests, bug reports.

Before you lodge a lodge a ticket:

• Ensure that you ask a question on our list, there might already be answer out there or we might have already acknowledged the issue
• Seek wisdom from our beautifully written documentation
• Google to see that it’s not something to do with your server environment (versions of Web server, WSGI connectors, etc)
• Check to ensure that you are not lodging a duplicate request.

When reporting issues:

• Include as much detail as you can about your environment (e.g Server OS, Web Server Version, WSGI connector)
• Steps that we can use to replicate the bug
• Share a bit of your application code with us, it goes a long way to replicate issues

Commercial Support

All commercial endeavors around prestans are managed by Eternity Technologies.

• Help with designing high performance REST apps using prestans
• Extending prestans support for backends, serializers, etc.
• Developer training in Python, prestans, Google Closure.

We also offer custom development services for writing high end Ajax and mobile apps, check out our website to see if we can help you create your next Web / Mobile project.