Trivia API

Setting up the Backend

Install Dependencies

1. Python 3.7 - Follow instructions to install the latest version of python for your platform in the python docs

2. Virtual Environment - We recommend working within a virtual environment whenever using Python for projects. This keeps your dependencies for each project separate and organized. Instructions for setting up a virual environment for your platform can be found in the python docs

3. PIP Dependencies - Once your virtual environment is setup and running, install the required dependencies by navigating to the /backend directory and running:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Key Pip Dependencies

• Flask is a lightweight backend microservices framework. Flask is required to handle requests and responses.

• SQLAlchemy is the Python SQL toolkit and ORM we'll use to handle the lightweight SQL database.

• Flask-CORS is the extension we'll use to handle cross-origin requests from our frontend server.

Set up the Database

With Postgres running, create a trivia database:

createdb trivia

Populate the database using the trivia.psql file provided. From the backend folder in terminal run:

psql trivia < trivia.psql

Run the Server

From within the ./src directory first ensure you are working using your created virtual environment.

To run the server, execute:

flask run --reload

The --reload flag will detect file changes and restart the server automatically.

Setting up the Front End

The frontend app was built using create-react-app and uses NPM to manage software dependencies. NPM Relies on the package.json file located in the frontend directory of this repository.

npm install

npm start

API Reference

Getting Started

• Base URL: At present this app can only be run locally and is not hosted as a base URL. The backend app is hosted at the default, http://127.0.0.1:5000/, which is set as a proxy in the frontend configuration.
• Authentication: This version of the application does not require authentication or API keys.

Error Handling

Errors are returned as JSON objects in the following format:

{
    "success": False, 
    "error": 400,
    "message": "bad request"
}

The API will return three error types when requests fail:

• 400: Bad Request
• 404: Resource Not Found
• 422: Not Processable
• 500: Internal server error

Endpoints

GET '/api/v1.0/categories'

• Fetches a dictionary of categories in which the keys are the ids and the value is the corresponding string of the category.
• Request Arguments: None
• Returns: An object with a single key, categories, that contains an object of id: category_string key: value pairs.

{
    "categories": { "1" : "Science",
    "2" : "Art",
    "3" : "Geography",
    "4" : "History",
    "5" : "Entertainment",
    "6" : "Sports" },
    "success": True
}

GET '/api/v1.0/categories/${id}/questions'

• Fetches questions for a cateogry specified by id request argument
• Request Arguments: id - integer
• Returns: An object with questions for the specified category, total questions, and current category of the first question returned

{
    "questions": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "question": "This is a question",
            "answer": "This is an answer",
            "difficulty": 5,
            "category": 4
        },
    ],
    "total_questions": 100,
    "current_category": "History",
    "success": True
}

GET '/api/v1.0/questions?page=${integer}'

• Fetches a paginated set of questions, a total number of questions, all categories and current category string.
• Request Arguments: page - integer
• Returns: An object with 10 paginated questions, total questions, object including all categories, and current category string

{
    "questions": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "question": "This is a question",
            "answer": "This is an answer",
            "difficulty": 5,
            "category": 2
        },
    ],
    "total_questions": 100,
    "categories": { "1" : "Science",
    "2" : "Art",
    "3" : "Geography",
    "4" : "History",
    "5" : "Entertainment",
    "6" : "Sports" },
    "current_category": "History",
    "success": True
}

DELETE '/api/v1.0/questions/${id}'

• Deletes a specified question using the id of the question
• Request Arguments: id - integer
• Returns: An object with the success of the operation and the id of the deleted question

{
    "success": True,
    "id": 2
}

POST '/api/v1.0/questions'

• Sends a post request in order to search for a specific question by search term
• Request Body

{
    "searchTerm": "this is the term the user is looking for"
}

• Returns: any array of questions, a number of totalQuestions that met the search term and the current category string

{
    "questions": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "question": "This is a question",
            "answer": "This is an answer",
            "difficulty": 5,
            "category": 5
        },
    ],
    "total_questions": 100,
    "current_category": "Entertainment",
    "success": True
}

POST '/api/v1.0/questions'

• Sends a post request in order to add a new question
• Request Body

{
    "question":  "Heres a new question string",
    "answer":  "Heres a new answer string",
    "difficulty": 1,
    "category": 3,
}

• Returns: the success state - True or False

{
    "success": True
}

POST '/api/v1.0/quizzes'

• Sends a post request in order to get the next question
• Request Body

{
    "previous_questions": [1, 4, 20, 15]
    "quiz_category": {"type": "Geography","id": "3"}
}

• Returns: a single a question object

{
    "question": {
        "id": 1,
        "question": "This is a question",
        "answer": "This is an answer",
        "difficulty": 5,
        "category": 3
    }
}

Testing

To deploy and run the tests:

dropdb trivia_test
createdb trivia_test
psql trivia_test < trivia.psql
python test_app.py