Currency Converter

Objectives:

• Test ability of developer to design, test and implement a given project within a given deadline using the necessary tools
• Ability to design and implement a project in Python

Project Scope:

• Develop an application in Python that can convert any(pre-defined set) input currency to any(pre-defined set) output currency
• Use data available on the web to ascertain conversion rates between currencies on any given day
• Develop an API and/or a web interface (to be decided during implementation) for the application

Milestones and Deadlines:

• Daily updates and August 18, 2023

Frameworks and Implementation:

• Python 3.11
• Django-Ninja (for API only)
• Django for web application backend
• HTML, CSS and js as part of Bootstrap V5 for application frontend (for Web GUI only)

Manual to Use:

1. Clone or download the repository and create a virutal environment inside the outermost folder that holds the repository by running python -m venv env in the command line. Here env is the name of the virutal environment
2. Activate the virutal environment in by running ./env/Scripts/activate in Powershell. Enclose the command within double quotes as "./env/Scripts/activate" if you use the native windows Command Prompt
3. Install all the required packages provided in the requirements.txt files by running pip install -r requirements.txt
4. Run all database migrations to get ready to run the Django application by running python manage.py migrate from inside the outermost Django folder folder
5. Before running the Django development server you will need to register with Fixer.io to obtain an API for use with this application.
6. Copy and paste the API key into the myproject/mysite/settings.py and assign to a variable API_KEY
7. Get your application up and running using the command python manage.py runserver
8. Access the homepage at the default local server 127.0.0.1:8000/converter/
9. The documentation for the API is accessible at 127.0.0.1:8000/api/docs when the application is running. This page provides an overview all available APIs
10. Each API URL can be tested either on this page, or by using external API testing platforms like Postman

Selenium for automated testing of web applications:

• This repository uses Selenium for testing the web application-browser interface
• Run python manage.py test from the outermost project directory to run unit test provided in the tests package

August 30, 2023

• Input and repeat forms have been modified and work correctly now
• DB migrated and code refactored to use Foreign Key connections between tables

August 24, 2023

• Cosmetic imporvements to how list view is displayed and how results are stored (2 decimal rounding)
• Complete Working Test suite implemented with Python unittest, Django Tests and Selenium (All tests passing) with custom dataset
• Potential Feature Addition(s): Search for Exchange Rates, Search/Display Historical Changes in Rates

August 21, 2023

• Use Selenium to write automated web browser tests for the application in conjunction with Django Tests.
• Tests run independent of existing server and databases using the LiveServerTestCase class and the Chrome WebDrivers available for use with Selenium.

August 18, 2023

• This Project stands complete
• Complete APIs for fetching currency names, symbols and conversion with raw data/form data
• APIs cover all (potentially) externally accessible parts of the application

August 17, 2023

• Complete working Currency Converter without full API

August 15, 2023

• Completed and Working backend for currency converter
• Data fetching is supposed to occur only once per week (to minimize API calls), so if conversion uses existing data from db, rates will be outdated
• Display of final result can be made better (front-end)
• API implementation pending

August 14, 2023

• Complete use of requests to obtain and store currency symbols in local database (SQLlite) from Fixer API
• Use requests to obtain current conversion rate using Fixer API
• Complete conversion logic based on input -> USD -> output
• Debugging in progress
• APIs pending

August 12, 2023

• use requests package to perform GET requests to any foreign exchange data server API to get country names and symbols
• use requests package to perform GET requests to any foreign exchange server API to get current conversion rates (once per day)
• Build Django application with function-based views (not class-based views) to support Django-Ninja with a GUI front-end (HTML, CSS and JS)
• use Django-Ninja for APIs on function-based views in Django