Movie Review API

Welcome to the Movie Review API, a Django-based REST API that allows users to register, authenticate, and submit reviews for various movies. This project is designed to provide a secure, scalable, and user-friendly platform for managing movie reviews, leveraging Django's robust framework, token authentication, and the Django REST Framework (DRF) for API management.

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Table of Contents

1. Project Overview
2. Features
3. Technologies Used
4. Project Structure
5. Installation and Setup
6. Authentication
7. Endpoints
8. Pagination and Filtering
9. Contributing
10. License

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Project Overview

The Movie Review API is designed to allow users to:

• Create an account and authenticate using token-based authentication.
• Submit reviews for movies, rate them, and view reviews by others.
• Search, filter, and paginate through the list of movies and reviews efficiently.

The project uses a custom User model, integrates Django REST Framework for API management, and supports token authentication for secure access. The API is flexible, making it easy for developers to integrate it into different client applications such as mobile apps, websites, or other frontend systems.

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Features

• User Registration and Authentication: Users can register and authenticate using tokens.
• Movie Management: Manage a collection of movies with title, genre, and release date.
• Review System: Users can submit reviews and ratings (1 to 5) for movies.
• Filtering and Searching: Find movies and reviews through search queries and filters.
• Pagination: Efficiently paginate through large datasets.
• Admin Panel: Admin users can manage movies, reviews, and user accounts via Django's admin interface.
• Secure: Token-based authentication ensures that only authorized users can perform certain actions (e.g., submit reviews).

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Technologies Used

This project leverages the following technologies:

• Python 3.12.x: Programming language for building the backend logic.
• Django 5.x: Web framework for rapid development and clean design.
• Django REST Framework: A powerful toolkit for building Web APIs in Django.
• PostgreSQL (optional): Database used in production environments for data storage.
• SQLite: Default database used for development.
• Django-Allauth: For handling user registration and social authentication.
• WhiteNoise: For static file management in production.
• Docker (optional): Containerization tool to deploy the project easily.

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Project Structure

Here's a quick look at the main folders and files:

├── movie_review_api/
│   ├── settings.py              # Main Django settings file
│   ├── urls.py                  # Project-level URL configuration
│   ├── wsgi.py                  # WSGI configuration for production
├── reviews/
│   ├── models.py                # Models for Movie and Review
│   ├── views.py                 # API views for handling movie and review requests
│   ├── serializers.py           # DRF serializers for data validation
│   ├── urls.py                  # URL routing for movie and review endpoints
├── users/
│   ├── models.py                # Custom User model and Profile
│   ├── admin.py                 # Custom admin registration for User and Profile
│   ├── serializers.py           # User serializers for DRF
│   ├── views.py                 # API views for handling user requests
├── manage.py                    # Django's management script
└── README.md                    # Project documentation

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Installation and Setup

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/movie-review-api.git
cd movie-review-api

2. Create a virtual environment and activate it:

python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate  # On Windows, use `env\Scripts\activate`

3. Install the project dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Set up environment variables:

You will need to create a .env file in the root of your project to store secret keys and database credentials:

SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key
DB_NAME=your-database-name
DB_USER=your-database-user
DB_PASSWORD=your-database-password
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432

5. Set up the database:

If using PostgreSQL, ensure the database is running, then run the following commands to apply the migrations:

python manage.py migrate

6. Create a superuser (admin account):

python manage.py createsuperuser

7. Run the development server:

python manage.py runserver

Now, you can access the API at http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

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Authentication

This project uses Token Authentication provided by Django REST Framework. After registration, users can obtain their authentication token by logging in through the /dj-rest-auth/login/ endpoint. Once the token is obtained, it should be included in the Authorization header of all requests.

Example of how to include the token in your request header:

Authorization: Token <your-token-here>

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Endpoints

Below are the key endpoints in the API:

User Endpoints:

• POST /dj-rest-auth/registration/ – Register a new user
• POST /dj-rest-auth/login/ – Log in and get a token
• POST /dj-rest-auth/logout/ – Log out the user

Movie Endpoints:

• GET /api/movies/ – Retrieve the list of movies
• GET /api/movies/{id}/ – Get details of a specific movie
• POST /api/movies/ – Add a new movie (admin only)

Review Endpoints:

• GET /api/reviews/ – Retrieve the list of reviews
• POST /api/reviews/ – Submit a new review (authenticated users)
• GET /api/reviews/{id}/ – Retrieve a specific review

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Pagination and Filtering

The API supports pagination, filtering, and searching to efficiently handle large sets of data. Pagination is enabled by default and can be controlled via query parameters.

• Pagination: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/movies/?limit=5&offset=10
• Filtering: Filter movies by title: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/movies/?title=Inception
• Search: Search reviews by rating: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/reviews/?search=5

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Contributing

Contributions to this project are welcome! Please follow the steps below:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature-branch).
3. Make your changes and commit (git commit -am 'Add new feature').
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature-branch).
5. Create a new Pull Request.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

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Contact

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the project, feel free to reach out via email at jazaltron.jan@gmail.com.

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