In terms of a REST-style architecture, the “api” is a collection of resources. In Tastypie, the Api gathers together the Resources & provides a nice way to use them as a set. It handles many of the URLconf details for you, provides a helpful “top-level” view to show what endpoints are available & some extra URL resolution juice.
A sample api definition might look something like (usually located in a URLconf):
from tastypie.api import Api
from myapp.api.resources import UserResource, EntryResource
v1_api = Api(api_name='v1')
v1_api.register(UserResource())
v1_api.register(EntryResource())
# Standard bits...
urlpatterns = patterns('',
(r'^api/', include(v1_api.urls)),
)
Implements a registry to tie together the various resources that make up an API.
Especially useful for navigation, HATEOAS and for providing multiple versions of your API.
Optionally supplying api_name allows you to name the API. Generally, this is done with version numbers (i.e. v1, v2, etc.) but can be named any string.
Registers an instance of a Resource subclass with the API.
Optionally accept a canonical argument, which indicates that the resource being registered is the canonical variant. Defaults to True.
Returns the canonical resource for a given resource_name.
A hook for adding your own URLs or overriding the default URLs. Useful for adding custom endpoints or overriding the built-in ones.
Should return a list of individual URLconf lines (NOT wrapped in patterns).
Property
Provides URLconf details for the Api and all registered Resources beneath it.
A view that returns a serialized list of all resources registers to the Api. Useful for discovery.