Python + Flask - Part 4 - Remote Database

This is the fourth and last part of a series about the Flask framework, a common tool used to create web applications with Python.

Objectives

The part 4 will focus on connecting the web API with a remote database.
The full example is available here: Python-Flask.

Topics

• Remote Database

Remote Database

Let's connect with a remote MySQL database now.
Follow the instructions in this article or in this repository to create a database and get the connection string.
If you followed them correctly, you must have a user table in your remote database. Change it by adding a column named age.
Here is an easy script to do it:

ALTER TABLE user ADD age INT NOT NULL;

Now, return to VSCode, add PyMySQL into the requirements.txt and install it by running:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Inside the db_api.py, import the PyMySQL package:

import pymysql.cursors

Comment the start_db function because it won't be needed anymore:

Modify the execute function to receive the MySQL connection by adding the connection string:

Change the post_users function to receive the inserted id:

Now, run the API again:

python .\api\db_api.py

Make a GET request to the get_users function. The result will be something like this:

Make a POST request to create another user:

Another GET request and the result will be:

Modify the age from your new user with a PUT request:

Check it out:

Delete another user:

And... it is gone!

Conclusion

In this series, you have seen how a web API behaves in a Python environment with Flask framework.
During our tests, runtime and persistent data were used.
The local and remote database had similar functions, equal results and were easy to manipulate.