A comparison of supplying default arguments to endpoints between Flask and WebCore.

flask.py

from datetime import datetime

from flask import Flask


app = Flask(__name__)


@app.route('/api/time')
def time():
	return jsonify(now=datetime.now().isoformat())


@app.route('/api/greet/<name>')
@app.route('/api/greet-stranger/', defaults={'name': 'mysterious person'})
def greeting(name):
	return jsonify(greeting=f"Welcome, {name}")

# Question this poses:
# Can you POST name=Bob+Dole to /api/greet-stranger/ and have it use the submitted form variable?
# Basically, is this unintentionally duplicating the possible API endpoints for this purpose?
# (Zen: There should be one, and preferably only one right way to do something...)
#
# Ansewer to the above: no.  Flask does not automatically apply any request-sourced data beyond
# matching the path elements to arguments.
#
# Admittedly, object dispatch can't replicate a "greet-stranger" endpoint declaratively, as Python
# literals can not be broken up by hyphens.

webcore.py

from datetime import datetime


class Root:
	class api:
		def time(self):
			return {"now": datetime.now().isoformat()}
		
		def greet(self, name="mysterious person"):
			"""Greet someone.
			
			With nobody specified, defaults to a stranger.  Allows:
			
			GET /api/greet
			GET /api/greet/<name>
			GET /api/greet?name=<name>
			POST /api/greet name=<name>
			"""
			return {"greeting": f"Welcome, {name}"}
		
		def __getattr__(self, name):  # Handle the special case of the hyphenated endpoint name.
			if name != 'greet-stranger':
				raise AttributeError()
			
			return self.greet

# Notable distinction: the above API definition is entirely usable outside the context of web requests.
# There is absolutely no awareness of the web context in any of this.
#
# Additionally, by returning dictionaries, the serialization will be RESTfully negotiated using the Accept header.
# While preserving native Python API use.  Your endpoints could also be returning actual model objects to be even
# more useful.
#
# Ref: https://github.com/marrow/WebCore/blob/develop/web/ext/serialize.py?ts=4#L54
# Ref: https://github.com/marrow/WebCore/blob/develop/web/core/view.py?ts=4