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Create REST API with Neo4J and Django


I am trying to create a REST API with Neo4j and Django in the backend.

The problem is that even when I have Django models using Neo4Django , I can't use frameworks like Tastypie or Piston that normally serialize models into JSON (or XML).

Sorry if my question is confusing or not clear, I am newbie to webservices.

Thanks for you help


EDIT: So I started with Tastypie and followed the tutorial on this page http://django-tastypie.readthedocs.org/en/latest/tutorial.html. I am looking for displaying the Neo4j JSON response in the browser, but when I try to access to http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/node/?format=json I get this error instead:

{"error_message": "'NoneType' object is not callable", "traceback": "Traceback (most recent call last):\n\n  File \"/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/tastypie/resources.py\", line 217, in wrapper\n    response = callback(request, *args, **kwargs)\n\n  File \"/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/tastypie/resources.py\", line 459, in dispatch_list\n    return self.dispatch('list', request, **kwargs)\n\n  File \"/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/tastypie/resources.py\", line 491, in dispatch\n    response = method(request, **kwargs)\n\n  File \"/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/tastypie/resources.py\", line 1298, in get_list\n    base_bundle = self.build_bundle(request=request)\n\n  File \"/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/tastypie/resources.py\", line 718, in build_bundle\n    obj = self._meta.object_class()\n\nTypeError: 'NoneType' object is not callable\n"}

Here is my code :

api.py file:

class NodeResource (ModelResource): #it doesn't work with Resource neither
    class meta:
        queryset= Node.objects.all()
        resource_name = 'node'

urls.py file:

node_resource= NodeResource()

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^api/', include(node_resource.urls)),

models.py file :

class Node(models.NodeModel):
    p1 = models.StringProperty()
    p2 = models.StringProperty()

Solution

  • Django-Tastypie allows to create REST APIs with NoSQL databases as well as mentioned in http://django-tastypie.readthedocs.org/en/latest/non_orm_data_sources.html.

    The principle is to use tastypie.resources.Resource and not tastypie.resources.ModelResource which is SPECIFIC to RDBMS, then main functions must be redefined in order to provide a JSON with the desired parameters.

    So I took the example given in the link, modified it and used Neo4j REST Client for Python to get an instance of the db and perform requests, and it worked like a charm.

    Thanks for all your responses :)