Penn Labs Backend Challenge 2020 spring - Penn Clubs Review Lite

This project is structured with the standard Django project setup. The PennLabsChallenge folder contains the setup files generated by django-admin startproject and the pennclubslite folder contains the files generated by python manage.py startapp.

Installation

In the root directory containing this project,

1. run py manage.py makemigrations pennclubslite
2. run py manage.py migrate
3. run py manage.py runserver to start the server

You should now be able to access the server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

Populating db with club data and creating user jen (this should only happen once)

1. run py manage.py shell to enter python shell
2. run from pennclubslite.scraper import store_clubs
3. run store_clubs() to pull club data from Online Clubs With Penn and store them in database
4. run from pennclubslite.models import CustomUser, Club, Category, Comment
5. run CustomUser(username='jen', email='jen@upenn.edu', password='jenpw', first_name='Jennifer', last_name='Jenln').save() to create user jen

Testing

Model Instances

To access models from the python shell, run from pennclubslite.models import CustomUser, Club, Category, Comment. You can view the clubs stored by running Club.objects.all() or querying for specific clubs by club_name. You can check the existence of jen by running CustomUser.objects.get(username='jen'). You can also access/create model instances from the admin site, but for mysterious reasons many-to-many fields don't show up for both models on the admin site and occasionally updates made to fields aren't reflected, so it's best to directly check by querying the db.

Accessing the admin site

1. run py manage.py createsuperuser
2. set the username, password, email as prompted
3. the admin site can be accessed at http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin

Testing POST requests with Postman

It's assumed that POST request data will be submitted through a form. In Postman, test by sending key-value pairs by selecting Body - form-data. Remember to append a slash at the end of the URL.

Design Documentation

Models (see models.py):

Using a database allows us to store large amounts of data and model the relationship between data efficiently. Clubs, users, comments and categories (tags) are all stored in the sqlite db. The fields of each model are detailed below (an id is automatically generated and hence not listed):

1. CustomUser: Extended Django's AbstractUser to make implementing login/logout/signup/authentication in the future. Required fields 'username', 'email', 'password', 'first_name', 'last_name'. 'username' is used as the unique identifier.

2. Club:

   • club_name: the club's name; character field of max-length 200
   • description: the description of the club; text field
   • likers: CustomUser instances who like this club; many-to-many field linking Club and CustomUsers

3. Comment:

   • club: foreign key linking to the Club that this Comment is related to
   • posted_by: the author of the comment; users have the freedom to post anonymously or leave whatever name they want
   • comment: text field containing the actual comment
   • date: date-time field recording the date of the comment

4. Category: club: Club instances in this category; many-to-many field linking Category and Club tag: the category name; character field of max-length 100

API (see urls.py & view.py):

URL	Http method	Parameters	Response upon success
'/'	'GET'	NA	Render html page
'/api/clubs/'	'GET'	NA	JSON containing club information
'/api/clubs/'	'POST'	club_name: name of club to create/edit description: description of club tag1tag2tag3: categories the club belongs to (optional)	HttpRedirect to homepage
'/api/user/:username/'	'GET'	username: the username of this User instance to query for	JSON containing username and registered email
'/api/favorite/'	'POST'	username: username of User instance favoriting this Club instance club_name: club_name of Club instance to favorite	HttpRedirect to homepage
'/api/comment/'	'POST'	club_name: club_name of Club instance to comment on author: author commenting (default to anonymous) comment: comments left by user date: date the comment was made	HttpRedirect to homepage

Bonus:

1. Updating of existing club is allowed by modifying fields of existing club instance
2. Information is stored in database as documented above