Step One¶

You will learn the core fundamentals of Ellar with this set of articles. We are going to build a basic CRUD application with features that cover a lot of ground at an introductory level.

Library Dependencies¶

Ellar core depends on:

python >= 3.7
Starlette
Injector

Quick Step¶

Using the Ellar CLI, you can easily set up a new project by running the following commands in your OS terminal:

$(venv) pip install ellar-cli
$(venv) ellar new project-name

The new command will create a project-name project directory with other necessary files needed for the Ellar CLI tool to properly manage your project. Also, some boilerplate files are populated and installed in a new project_name to get structure to your project.

project-name/
├─ project_name/
│  ├─ core/
│  ├─ domain/
│  ├─ config.py
│  ├─ root_module.py
│  ├─ server.py
│  ├─ __init__.py
├─ tests/
│  ├─ __init__.py
├─ pyproject.toml
├─ README.md

A brief overview of generated core files:


`pyproject.toml`	Python project metadata store.
`README.md`	Project Description and documentation.
`project_name.core`	Core/business logic folder.
`project_name.domain`	Domain logic folder.
`project_name.config`	Application configuration file
`project_name.root_module`	The root module of the application
`project_name.server`	The entry file of the application which uses the core function `AppFactory` to create an application instance.

In project_name.server, we create the application instance using the AppFactory.create_from_app_module function.

# project_name/server.py
import os

from ellar.common.constants import ELLAR_CONFIG_MODULE
from ellar.app import AppFactory
from .root_module import ApplicationModule

application = AppFactory.create_from_app_module(
    ApplicationModule,
    config_module=os.environ.get(
        ELLAR_CONFIG_MODULE, "project_name.config:DevelopmentConfig"
    ),
)

There are two ways to create an Ellar application using the AppFactory, create_from_app_module and create_app. Both provides all necessary parameter for creating Ellar application

Run your project¶

Ellar runs UVICORN - ASGI Server under the hood.

$(venv) cd project-name
$(venv) ellar runserver --reload

--reload is to watch for file changes

INFO:     Will watch for changes in these directories: ['/home/user/working-directory']
INFO:     Uvicorn running on http://127.0.0.1:8000 (Press CTRL+C to quit)
INFO:     Started reloader process [2934815] using WatchFiles
INFO:     APP SETTINGS MODULE: project_name.config:DevelopmentConfig
INFO:     Started server process [2934818]
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     Application startup complete.

Now go to http://127.0.0.1:8000 Swagger UI

For more info on Ellar CLI, click here

To run the application with a different configuration, In project_name/config, Add a ProductionConfig

...

class ProductionConfig(BaseConfig):
    DEBUG: bool = False

Next, export ProductionConfig string import to the environment with ELLAR_CONFIG_MODULE as key.

$(venv) export ELLAR_CONFIG_MODULE='project_name.config:ProductionConfig'
$(venv) ellar runserver

That will start up the application using ProductionConfig

INFO:     APP SETTINGS MODULE: project_name.config:ProductionConfig
INFO:     Started server process [2934818]
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     Application startup complete.
INFO:     Uvicorn running on http://127.0.0.1:8000 (Press CTRL+C to quit)

One last thing, before we move to the next page, we need to create an app module.

Lets add a car module/app to our project:

$(venv) ellar create-module car apps/

The result of this CLI command is stored in project-name/project_name/apps

apps/
├─ car/
│  ├─ controllers.py
│  ├─ module.py
│  ├─ schemas.py
│  ├─ services.py
│  ├─ __init__.py

Brief overview of the generated files:


`car.controllers`	A basic controller with an `index` route.
`car.module.py`	car module/app `Module` metadata definition.
`car.services.py`	For Car module service declarations.
`car.schemas.py`	Data-transfer-object or Serializers declarations.

To finish up with the created car module, we need to register it to the project_name.root_module.py

# project_name/root_module.py
...
from .apps.cars.module import CarModule


@Module(modules=[HomeModule, CarModule])
class ApplicationModule(ModuleBase):
    @exception_handler(404)
    def exception_404_handler(cls, request: Request, exc: Exception) -> Response:
        return JSONResponse(dict(detail="Resource not found."))

That's it.

Goto your browser and visit: http://localhost:8000/car/

{
  "detail": "Welcome Car Resource"
}

Enabling OpenAPI Docs¶

To set up OPENAPI documentation, we need to go back to the project folder. In the server.py then add the below.

# project_name/server.py

import os
from ellar.common.constants import ELLAR_CONFIG_MODULE
from ellar.app import AppFactory
from ellar.openapi import OpenAPIDocumentModule, OpenAPIDocumentBuilder, SwaggerUI
from .root_module import ApplicationModule

application = AppFactory.create_from_app_module(
    ApplicationModule,
    config_module=os.environ.get(
        ELLAR_CONFIG_MODULE, "project_name.config:DevelopmentConfig"
    ),
)

document_builder = OpenAPIDocumentBuilder()
document_builder.set_title('Project Name API') \
    .set_version('1.0.0') \
    .set_contact(name='Eadwin', url='https://www.yahoo.com', email='eadwin@gmail.com') \
    .set_license('MIT Licence', url='https://www.google.com')

document = document_builder.build_document(application)
OpenAPIDocumentModule.setup(
    app=application,
    docs_ui=SwaggerUI(),
    document=document,
    guards=[]
)

Goto your browser and visit: http://localhost:8000/docs/