web services - Split Python Flask app into multiple files

Question

I'm having trouble understanding how to split a flask app into multiple files.

I'm creating a web service and I want to split the api's into different files (AccountAPI.py, UploadAPI.py, ...), just so I don't have one huge python file.

I've read that you can do this with Blueprints, but I'm not entirely sure that route is the right one for me.

Ultimately I want to run one Main python file and include other files so that when it runs, they are considered one big file.

For example if I have Main.py and AccountAPI.py I want to be able to do this:

Main.py:

from flask import Flask
import AccountAPI

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route("/")
def hello():
    return "Hello World!"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

AccountAPI.py:

@app.route("/account")
def accountList():
    return "list of accounts"

I know with this example it obviously won't work, but is it possible to do something like that?

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes, Blueprints are the right way to do it. What you are trying to do can be achieved like this:

Main.py

from flask import Flask
from AccountAPI import account_api

app = Flask(__name__)

app.register_blueprint(account_api)

@app.route("/")
def hello():
    return "Hello World!"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

AccountAPI.py

from flask import Blueprint

account_api = Blueprint('account_api', __name__)

@account_api.route("/account")
def accountList():
    return "list of accounts"

If this is an option, you might consider using different URL prefixes for the different APIs/Blueprints in order to cleanly separate them. This can be done with a slight modification to the above register_blueprint call:

app.register_blueprint(account_api, url_prefix='/accounts')

For further documentation, you may also have a look at the official docs.