Django Rest Framework: empty request.data

Question

I have the following code for a view of DRF:

from rest_framework import viewsets

class MyViewSet(viewsets.ViewSet):

    def update(self, request, pk = None):
        print pk
        print request.data

I call the URL via python-requests in the following way:

import requests
payload = {"foo":"bar"}
headers = {'Content-type': 'application/json'}
r = requests.put("https://.../myPk", data= payload, headers=headers)

but when the request is received from the server, request.data is empty. Here there is the output:

myPk
<QueryDict: {}>

How can I fix this problem?

Mikeec3 the doc of rest framwork says: request.data returns the parsed content of the request body. This is similar to the standard request.POST and request.FILES attributes except that: - It includes all parsed content, including file and non-file inputs. - It supports parsing the content of HTTP methods other than POST, meaning that you can access the content of PUT and PATCH requests. - It supports REST framework's flexible request parsing, rather than just supporting form data. For example you can handle incoming JSON data in the same way that you handle incoming form data. — floatingpurr
– floatingpurr, Commented Jun 5, 2015 at 17:45
I'm having the same issue but only if I use a custom parser, and even if the parser is 1-1 with the default one, same thing word for word copied and pasted into a new module, same problem occurs. It only happens when using json body, rather than the form data from the UI. I can see the data coming in as request.body but not request.data. If I remove my custom parser, its back to normal both request.body and request.data are filled. My stream.read() looks exactly the same, its just that request.body is filled, while request.data is not. — radtek
– radtek, Commented Jan 4, 2019 at 15:56

sthzg · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-08 09:59:41Z

16

You need to send the payload as a serialized json object.

import json
import requests
payload = {"foo":"bar"}
headers = {'Content-type': 'application/json'}
r = requests.put("https://.../myPk/", data=json.dumps(payload), headers=headers)

Otherwise what happens is that DRF will actually complain about:

*** ParseError: JSON parse error - No JSON object could be decoded

You would see that error message by debugging the view (e.g. with pdb or ipdb) or printing the variable like this:

def update(self, request, pk = None):
    print pk
    print str(request.data)

edited Jun 8, 2015 at 9:59

answered Jun 5, 2015 at 18:09

sthzg

5,5642 gold badges32 silver badges51 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

5 Comments

floatingpurr Over a year ago

I tried to serialize the dictionary as a json but it still not working. When I read the print of the var values I get always myPk and <QueryDict: {}>.

sthzg Over a year ago

What output do you get when you do print request.stream.read() instead of print request.data (it's important to remove print request.data for that test). This should show you the unaltered raw data from your request. Do you see anything there? .stream in the docs

floatingpurr Over a year ago

I added the line print request.stream.read() immediately after def update(self, request, pk = None):. The output is: AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'read'

floatingpurr Over a year ago

Ok I solved! The issues was: (i) JSON serialization and (ii) trailing slash in the request URL. r = requests.put("https://.../myPk/", data=json.dumps(payload), headers=headers). sthzg, if you update the URL of yout above answer, adding a trailing slashi, I can flag it as accepted (Hoping it is a regular operation for stackexchange...)

sthzg Over a year ago

Glad you solved it. I actually thought about the trailing slash and used it in the testing code, but forgot to test it for errors without it. Updated the path in the answer.

Harkirat Saluja · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-31 19:05:04Z

6

Check 2 issues here:-

Json format is proper or not.
Url is correct or not(I was missing trailing backslash in my url because of which I was facing the issue)

Hope it helps

answered Mar 31, 2016 at 19:05

Harkirat Saluja

8,1145 gold badges53 silver badges74 bronze badges

Comments

Ian Stapleton Cordasco · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-06 16:48:39Z

1

Assuming you're on a new enough version of requests you need to do:

import requests

payload = {"foo":"bar"}
r = requests.put("https://.../myPk", json=payload, headers=headers)

Then it will properly format the payload for you and provide the appropriate headers. Otherwise, you're sending application/x-www-urlformencoded data which DRF will not parse correctly since you tell it that you're sending JSON.

answered Jun 6, 2015 at 16:48

Ian Stapleton Cordasco

29.2k4 gold badges73 silver badges73 bronze badges

1 Comment

floatingpurr Over a year ago

Ok, but I specify the format in headers = {'Content-type': 'application/json'}

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Django Rest Framework: empty request.data

3 Answers 3

5 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

5 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related