tokrathesecond / simple-flask-file-server

Simple python flask file server

Task assignment

• implement in python (use of any libraries and DB services is optional)
• upload, download, delete file
• list files available on file server (with filtering options)
• statistics of files available on file server
• uploaded file has following metadata:
  • name
  • extension type
  • size
  • upload datetime

Prerequisites

• small files - max. 100 MiB, but most of the arround 1 MiB
• a lot of files
• used mainly via JS from web browser
• authentication and authorization is not needed
• more reading than writing

Dependencies

• solution is dockerized, so you need docker installed on your system
• curl for manual tests

How to run

Extract provided ZIP file.

cd PROJECT_FOLDER
docker build -t file-server .
docker run -p 5000:5000 file-server

Now you can play with file server in another terminal window, web browser, or elsewhere :).

Files are not persistent. Restarted docker service will start empty.

Endpoints

Upload file - /upload - POST

• curl -X POST -F "file=@PATH_TO_YOUR_FILE" http://localhost:5000/file
• returns:

{
    "file_info":
        {
            "datetime_uploaded": ISO DATETIME as STRING,
            "name": STRING,
            "size_bytes": INT,
            "type": STRING
        },
    "message": STRING
}

Upload of new file with same name will overwrite the old one. Max upload size of one file is 100 MiB.

Download file - /file - GET

• curl -o OUTPUT_FILE_NAME http://localhost:5000/file/TARGET_FILE_NAME

Delete file - /file - DELETE

• curl -X DELETE http://localhost:5000/file/TARGET_FILE_NAME
• returns:

{
    "message": STRING
}

List files - /file - GET

• curl http://localhost:5000/file
  • with type filtering curl http://localhost:5000/file?type=.md
  • with name ordering ascending curl http://localhost:5000/file?sort_by_size=asc
  • with name ordering descending curl http://localhost:5000/file?sort_by_size=desc
  • or you can combine it like this curl "http://localhost:5000/file?type=.md&sort_by_size=asc"
• returns:

{
    "files":
        [
            {
                "datetime_uploaded": ISO DATETIME as STRING,
                "name": STRING,
                "size_bytes": INT,
                "type": STRING
            }
        ]
}

Statistics - /file/statistics - GET

• curl http://localhost:5000/file/statistics
• return:

{
    "avg_size_bytes": INT,
    "median_size_bytes": INT,
    "num_of_files": INT,
    "total_size_bytes": INT
}

Notes to discuss

• how to handle file persistence
• README documents only happy path responses
• possible authorization / authentification
• how to not overwrite files with same name
• I deliberately avoided all comments - code is short and straightforward
  • when possible - put all info into code, not into comments
  • in production code I like to use google style docstrings - github example
• I do not follow PEP 8 line length
  • usually I like to use limit around ~ 120 characters per line - but it is all about consensus in team
  • integration of static type checking, linters and code formatter, I like to use following:
  • mypy - github link
  • ruff - github link