* The **file** that can be **executed** by the operating system, for example: `python`, `python.exe` or `uvicorn`.
* A particular program while it is **running** on the operating system, using the CPU, and storing things on memory. This is also called a **process**.

### What is a Process

The word **process** is normally used in a more specific way, only referring to the thing that is running in the operating system (like in the last point above):

That way, you can create a token with an expiration of, let's say, 1 week. And then when the user comes back the next day with the token, you know that user is still logged in to your system.

### Types and validation

These environment variables can only handle text strings, as they are external to Python and have to be compatible with other programs and the rest of the system (and even with different operating systems, as Linux, Windows, macOS).

That means that any value read in Python from an environment variable will be a `str`, and any conversion to a different type or validation has to be done in code.

    Then APIStar stopped to exist as a server and Starlette was created, and was a new better foundation for such a system. That was the final inspiration to build **FastAPI**.

    I consider **FastAPI** a "spiritual successor" to APIStar, while improving and increasing the features, typing system, and other parts, based on the learnings from all these previous tools.

## Used by **FastAPI**

# Classes as Dependencies

Before diving deeper into the **Dependency Injection** system, let's upgrade the previous example.

## A `dict` from the previous example

In the previous example, we were returning a `dict` from our dependency ("dependable"):

=== "Python 3.10+"

    ```Python hl_lines="9"
    {!> ../../../docs_src/dependencies/tutorial001_an_py310.py!}
    ```

=== "Python 3.9+"

    ```Python hl_lines="11"

    * All this would also work for deeply nested JSON objects.
* Convert from and to JSON automatically.
* Document everything with OpenAPI, that can be used by:
    * Interactive documentation systems.
    * Automatic client code generation systems, for many languages.
* Provide 2 interactive documentation web interfaces directly.

---

We just scratched the surface, but you already get the idea of how it all works.

```JSON
{
  "detail": "Inactive user"
}
```

## Recap

You now have the tools to implement a complete security system based on `username` and `password` for your API.

Using these tools, you can make the security system compatible with any database and with any user or data model.

The only detail missing is that it is not actually "secure" yet.

* the data from the client to be sent through the network
* the data sent by your program to be received by the client through the network
* the contents of a file in the disk to be read by the system and given to your program
* the contents your program gave to the system to be written to disk
* a remote API operation
* a database operation to finish
* a database query to return the results
* etc.

The simplicity of the dependency injection system makes **FastAPI** compatible with:

* all the relational databases
* NoSQL databases
* external packages
* external APIs
* authentication and authorization systems
* API usage monitoring systems
* response data injection systems
* etc.

## Simple and Powerful

Linux containers run using the same Linux kernel of the host (machine, virtual machine, cloud server, etc). This just means that they are very lightweight (compared to full virtual machines emulating an entire operating system).