What Technologies Are We Using?

• Python 3
• Flask

Follow the instructions below based on your platform.

Google has a very good overview of these instructions.

Installation on a Mac

Open the Terminal on a Mac and then install Homebrew. Homebrew is a package manager for open source software on Mac computers.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

If Homebrew is already installed, update it:

brew update

Install Python:

brew install python

Create your virtual environment. Conceptually, you'll want to create a virtual environment for every separate Python project. In the example below, my environment is named 37400_python_api.

python3 -m venv 37400_python_api

Start your virtual environment:

source 37400_python_api/bin/activate

You should see your virtual environment name appear before your command prompt.

Installation on Windows

First install the latest version of Python for Windows from the Python website.

Create your virtual environment. Conceptually, you'd want to create a virtual environment for every separate Python project. In the example below, my environment is named 37400_python_api.

py -m venv 37400_python_api

Start your virtual environment:

.\env\Scripts\activate

You should see your virtual environment name appear before your command prompt.

With your virtual environment running, update pip - the Python package manager:

pip install --upgrade pip

You will create a file that will host a simple Python web site.

First, create a new directory that will hold your website's files and then move into it.

mkdir api
cd api

Using your favorite code editor, create two files in the api folder:

• main.py
• requirements.txt

Add the following code to main.py

from flask import Flask

app = Flask(__name__)
app.config["DEBUG"] = True


@app.route('/', methods=['GET'])
def home():
    return "<h1>Sample Python Page</h1><p>This is an HTML page served by Python.</p>"

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # This is used when running locally only.
    app.run(host='127.0.0.1', port=8080, debug=True)

Add the following code to requirements.txt

Flask==2.0.1

From the command line, add the packages listed in requirements.txt to your virtual environment.

pip install -r requirements.txt

Instruct Python to run your app.

Mac:

python3 main.py

Windows:

py main.py

Your page is now being served at http://127.0.0.1:8080/ on your local machine.

Ensure that Git is installed on your local machine.

Then, run the following series of commands to create a local Git repository.

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial Commit"

You will also want to create a remote repository and push your local files to it.

A sample remote repository for this application can be found here.

You now have a basic Python / Flask site set up. Go do something cool with it.