Create a Simple API with Python and Flask

https://github.com/dcs-ink/simple-api-python-flask I recently requested my data from Indeed because I was curious about the statistics with my recent job search. I've worked plenty with APIs, but never built one from scratch. I decided to create a simple one using Python and Flask. It's simple really, only consists of two files - the python script and the json file. jobs.json job_api.py Here's a snippet example of the json file I received from Indeed. [ { "title" : "Job Title", "company" : "CoolCompany", "location" : "Cool City, COOL", "date" : "date timestamp" } ] Mine had something like 300 entries, but the point remains the same. Here's the python script import json from flask import Flask, jsonify app = Flask(name) jobs_data = [] try: with open('jobs.json', 'r') as f: jobs_data = json.load(f) print(f"Successfully loaded {len(jobs_data)} jobs from jobs.json") except FileNotFoundError: print("Error: jobs.json not found!") except json.JSONDecodeError: print("Error: jobs.json is not valid JSON!") @app.route('/api/jobs', methods=['GET']) def get_all_jobs(): return jsonify(jobs_data) @app.route('/api/jobs/titles', methods=['GET']) def get_job_titles(): titles = [job['title'] for job in jobs_data] return jsonify(titles) @app.route('/api/jobs/companies', methods=['GET']) def get_job_companies(): if not jobs_data: return jsonify({"error": "No job data available"}), 500 companies = list(set(job.get('company', 'N/A') for job in jobs_data)) return jsonify(companies) @app.route('/api/jobs/location', methods=['GET']) def get_job_locations(): if not jobs_data: return jsonify({"error": "No job data available"}), 500 locations = list(set(job.get('location') for job in jobs_data)) return jsonify(locations) if name == 'main': app.run(debug=True, port=8080) Steps to make it work. After setup and activating a virtual environment... pip install flask pip install jsonify Create python file and paste above python code Create json file and paste above json code Run python script sudo python3 job_api.py Use curl to test curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/jobs Response [ { "company": "CoolCompany", "date": "date timestamp", "location": "Cool City, COOL", "title": "Job Title" } ]

Mar 31, 2025 - 01:00

Create a Simple API with Python and Flask

https://github.com/dcs-ink/simple-api-python-flask

I recently requested my data from Indeed because I was curious about the statistics with my recent job search.

I've worked plenty with APIs, but never built one from scratch. I decided to create a simple one using Python and Flask.

It's simple really, only consists of two files - the python script and the json file.

jobs.json
job_api.py

Here's a snippet example of the json file I received from Indeed.

[
    {
      "title" : "Job Title",
      "company" : "CoolCompany",
      "location" : "Cool City, COOL",
      "date" : "date timestamp"
    }
]

Mine had something like 300 entries, but the point remains the same.

Here's the python script

import json
from flask import Flask, jsonify

app = Flask(__name__)

jobs_data = []
try:
    with open('jobs.json', 'r') as f:
        jobs_data = json.load(f)
    print(f"Successfully loaded {len(jobs_data)} jobs from jobs.json")
except FileNotFoundError:
    print("Error: jobs.json not found!")
except json.JSONDecodeError:
    print("Error: jobs.json is not valid JSON!")

@app.route('/api/jobs', methods=['GET'])
def get_all_jobs():
    return jsonify(jobs_data)

@app.route('/api/jobs/titles', methods=['GET'])
def get_job_titles():
    titles = [job['title'] for job in jobs_data]
    return jsonify(titles)

@app.route('/api/jobs/companies', methods=['GET'])
def get_job_companies():
    if not jobs_data:
        return jsonify({"error": "No job data available"}), 500
    companies = list(set(job.get('company', 'N/A') for job in jobs_data))
    return jsonify(companies)

@app.route('/api/jobs/location', methods=['GET'])
def get_job_locations():
    if not jobs_data:
        return jsonify({"error": "No job data available"}), 500
    locations = list(set(job.get('location') for job in jobs_data))
    return jsonify(locations)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(debug=True, port=8080)

Steps to make it work.
After setup and activating a virtual environment...

pip install flask
pip install jsonify
Create python file and paste above python code
Create json file and paste above json code
Run python script sudo python3 job_api.py
Use curl to test

curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/jobs

Response

[
    {
        "company": "CoolCompany",
        "date": "date timestamp",
        "location": "Cool City, COOL",
        "title": "Job Title"
    }
]