Fetching Recipes with TheMealDB and TheCocktailDB APIs in Python/

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Demo Application

Demo Application

Look at how TheMealDB and TheCocktailDB APIs can be used in an actual application.

We'll cover the following...

Let us now look at a Django app that uses TheMealDB API and TheCocktailDB API to provide the user with some delicious recipes.

Live demo

The widget below contains the code for our application. Click the “Run” button to run the app.

"""
ASGI config for foodapp_demo project.

It exposes the ASGI callable as a module-level variable named ``application``.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.0/howto/deployment/asgi/
"""

import os

from django.core.asgi import get_asgi_application

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'foodapp_demo.settings')

application = get_asgi_application()

Let's look at the code in views.py, where the API is being called. There are three functions in views.py. Let's look at what each one does and how.

  • The get_cocktails_list() function, defined in lines 8—17, is used to get the list of the cocktails available in the category selected by the user.

    • We retrieve the selected category in line 9 and save it in the variable category.
    • We call the API using the category variable as the value of the query parameter c and save the response in the response variable in line 11.
    • We convert the response variable to JSON and send it to be used at the frontend in lines 12—17.

  • We use the get_meals_list() function, defined in lines 20—29, to get the list of the meals available in the category selected by the user.

    • We retrieve the selected category in line 21 and save it in the variable category.
    • We use the category variable as the value of the query parameter c. We call the API and save the response in the response variable in line 23.
    • Then, we convert the response variable to JSON and send it to be used at the frontend in lines 24—29.

  • We use the index() function, defined in lines 32—54, to render the page. It is also used to retrieve the information of the selected meal and the selected cocktail.

    • The code in line 33 checks if the POST request has been generated by the user or not.
    • In case the POST request has not been generated:
      • We declare an empty variable context in line 53.
    • In case a POST request has been generated:
      • We retrieve the selected meal and selected cocktail in line 35 and line 36 respectively.
      • We finalize the URLs in lines 39—40.
      • We call the APIs using these URLs, in lines 42—43.
      • We save the response of TheMealDB API in response1 in line 42 and the response of TheCocktailDB API is saved in response2 in line 43.
      • We convert the retrieved information to JSON and save it to the context variable in lines 44—51.
    • The context variable is then sent as a response to templates/foodapp/index.html in line 54.