Routes are declared in a single place, using functions declared in other places (instead of using decorators that can be placed right on top of the function that handles the endpoint). This is closer to how Django does it than to how Flask (and Starlette) does it. It separates in the code things that are relatively tightly coupled.

!!! check "Inspired **FastAPI** to"

```Python hl_lines="8  10-11"
{!> ../../../docs_src/response_model/tutorial003_02.py!}
```

This simple case is handled automatically by FastAPI because the return type annotation is the class (or a subclass) of `Response`.

* Restarts
* Replication (the number of processes running)
* Memory
* Previous steps before starting

In these cases you can use `root_path` to configure your application.

The `root_path` is a mechanism provided by the ASGI specification (that FastAPI is built on, through Starlette).

The `root_path` is used to handle these specific cases.

And it's also used internally when mounting sub-applications.

## Proxy with a stripped path prefix

In most cases, the same tool that is used to **run the program on startup** is also used to handle automatic **restarts**.

For example, this could be handled by:

* Docker
* Kubernetes
* Docker Compose
* Docker in Swarm Mode
* Systemd
* Supervisor
* Handled internally by a cloud provider as part of their services
* Others...

## Replication - Processes and Memory

    opt raise
        dep -->> handler: Raise HTTPException
        handler -->> client: HTTP error response
        dep -->> dep: Raise other exception
    end
    dep ->> operation: Run dependency, e.g. DB session
    opt raise
        operation -->> dep: Raise HTTPException
        dep -->> handler: Auto forward exception
        handler -->> client: HTTP error response

        * [Override the default exception handlers](https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/tutorial/handling-errors/#override-the-default-exception-handlers).
        * [Re-use **FastAPI's** exception handlers](https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/tutorial/handling-errors/#re-use-fastapis-exception-handlers).
    * PR [#273](https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/pull/273).

{!../../../docs_src/custom_request_and_route/tutorial001.py!}
```

### ✍ 🛃 `GzipRoute` 🎓

⏭, 👥 ✍ 🛃 🏿 `fastapi.routing.APIRoute` 👈 🔜 ⚒ ⚙️ `GzipRequest`.

👉 🕰, ⚫️ 🔜 📁 👩‍🔬 `APIRoute.get_route_handler()`.

👉 👩‍🔬 📨 🔢. & 👈 🔢 ⚫️❔ 🔜 📨 📨 & 📨 📨.

📥 👥 ⚙️ ⚫️ ✍ `GzipRequest` ⚪️➡️ ⏮️ 📨.

```Python hl_lines="18-26"
{!../../../docs_src/custom_request_and_route/tutorial001.py!}
```

That way, the sub-application will know to use that path prefix for the docs UI.

And the sub-application could also have its own mounted sub-applications and everything would work correctly, because FastAPI handles all these `root_path`s automatically.

So, you will be able to see it all in the interactive API docs.

## Connect and disconnect

* Create your `FastAPI` application.
* Create event handlers to connect and disconnect from the database.

```Python hl_lines="42  45-47  50-52"
{!../../../docs_src/async_sql_databases/tutorial001.py!}
```

## Read notes

Create the *path operation function* to read notes: