Week 21 · Interactive web

Back end: a web API with Flask and a database

Your dashboard from week 16 shows data from a fixed file. Real apps — M-Pesa, school portals, Chipy itself — have a back end: a server program that receives data, checks it, stores it in a database and sends it to any app that asks. Today you build one in about 80 lines of Python.

Web development90 minutesAdvancedLevel 2 module

In this lesson you will

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Explain clients, servers, HTTP methods (GET, POST) and status codes
Run a Flask server that stores readings in an SQLite database
Send and read JSON with the API using a browser and Python
Validate input and use parameterised SQL to prevent injection
Connect the week 16 dashboard to the live API

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Enrolled students get the complete notes: essential theory, key terms, a step-by-step practical walkthrough, an independent challenge, check-your-understanding questions and the take-home task.

Back end: a web API with Flask and a database

In this lesson you will

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