Is this the correct format of POST body?

Question

I am POST-ing to a view in Django. The POST body contains data in the following format :

{
    'Service' : 'API'
}

and I am doing this in my view :

args = request.POST
service = args.get('Service', '').strip()

But service comes out as ''

I used pdb and request.POST is like this :

<QueryDict: {u"{\n    'Service' : 'API'\n}": [u'']}>

Thats the reason service becomes '' because it has become a dict-in-a-dict. I want to know is this supposed to happen? What is the [u'']. From where does it get added in to the body? If it is something that should happen, how do I parse the body to get out Service?

is that the entire POST dict ? To get a dict, you can do `request.POST.copy()` to get the exact post dictionary. Also, there is something else messing the code up. Like `{\n 'Service' : 'API'\n}` is being evaluated as the key — karthikr, Jun 17 '13 at 03:28
How are you posting the info to the view? Through a template? Can you illustrate it a little? — Paulo Bu, Jun 17 '13 at 03:30
@karthikryes. like there are other fields which I am not posting. So how should I get rid of the `\n` from the request.POST dict? I mean when POST-ing the `\n is going to be included any way right?` — Indradhanush Gupta, Jun 17 '13 at 03:32
well.. It should not, but apparently some formatting or some kind of code is messing the POST. can you post your HTML, and view ? Also the entire POST object? — karthikr, Jun 17 '13 at 03:33
@PauloBu Ultimately its going to be a client POST-ing the data. So at the moment I am using RESTClient for Fireox. — Indradhanush Gupta, Jun 17 '13 at 03:33
Still, it seems to be something wrong when you POST the info. You'll have to show us. — Paulo Bu, Jun 17 '13 at 03:35
If you are using the Restclient, you are probably using the wrong format to send the key value pairs. Please check that — karthikr, Jun 17 '13 at 03:38
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13132794/firefox-add-on-restclient-how-to-input-post-parameters — karthikr, Jun 17 '13 at 03:40
@karthikr I changed the format as suggested in the answer. And the `args` is `` but still `Service` is `''` — Indradhanush Gupta, Jun 17 '13 at 03:48
why is the key `{\n 'Service' : 'API'\n}` ? Are you missing some `"` or `'` somewhere? — karthikr, Jun 17 '13 at 03:59
i know that, but the dict for `request.POST` is taking the key as `{\n 'Service' : 'API'\n}` which is the problem — karthikr, Jun 17 '13 at 04:01
@karthikr I can't really figure it out why. My command is : `service = args.get('Service', '')` — Indradhanush Gupta, Jun 17 '13 at 04:04
`` Theres a `"` after `NORMAL` and just before `Service` I wonder if its casing the problem? — Indradhanush Gupta, Jun 17 '13 at 04:16

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 17 '13 at 04:44

1

if you're posting a string like that (common for things like JSON-RPC), vs using a known format (like multipart/form-data), you can use this (in your view):

def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    body = request.body  # This is your string
    data = json.loads(body)
    service = data['Service']

This is predicated on your front-end code posting valid JSON data back. Otherwise, you'll be left to your own devices to decode something less standard (your example uses single quotes, for instance - not valid JSON). Encode a JavaScript object into JSON using JSON.stringify(my_obj), then post that value.

answered Jun 17 '13 at 04:44

orokusaki

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I stopped using REST Client. Wrote a script using requests module to post the data. Its working fine now. :) – Indradhanush Gupta Jun 17 '13 at 05:02
1

Excellent, nice idea - requests is a terrific library. – orokusaki Jun 17 '13 at 13:36

Is this the correct format of POST body?

1 Answers1