I’m trying to process incoming JSON/Ajax requests with Django/Python.

request.is_ajax() is True on the request, but I have no idea where the payload is with the JSON data.

request.POST.dir contains this:

['__class__', '__cmp__', '__contains__', '__copy__', '__deepcopy__', '__delattr__',
 '__delitem__', '__dict__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__',
'__getitem__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__iter__', '__le__', '__len__',
 '__lt__', '__module__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', 
'__setattr__', '__setitem__', '__str__', '__weakref__', '_assert_mutable', '_encoding', 
'_get_encoding', '_mutable', '_set_encoding', 'appendlist', 'clear', 'copy', 'encoding', 
'fromkeys', 'get', 'getlist', 'has_key', 'items', 'iteritems', 'iterkeys', 'itervalues', 
'keys', 'lists', 'pop', 'popitem', 'setdefault', 'setlist', 'setlistdefault', 'update', 
'urlencode', 'values']

There are apparently no keys in the request post keys.

When I look at the POST in Firebug, there is JSON data being sent up in the request.

If you are posting JSON to Django, I think you want request.body (request.raw_post_data on Django < 1.4). This will give you the raw JSON data sent via the post. From there you can process it further.

Here is an example using JavaScript, jQuery, jquery-json and Django.

JavaScript:

var myEvent = {id: calEvent.id, start: calEvent.start, end: calEvent.end,
               allDay: calEvent.allDay };
$.ajax({
    url: '/event/save-json/',
    type: 'POST',
    contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
    data: $.toJSON(myEvent),
    dataType: 'text',
    success: function(result) {
        alert(result.Result);
    }
});

Django:

def save_events_json(request):
    if request.is_ajax():
        if request.method == 'POST':
            print 'Raw Data: "%s"' % request.body   
    return HttpResponse("OK")

Django < 1.4:

  def save_events_json(request):
    if request.is_ajax():
        if request.method == 'POST':
            print 'Raw Data: "%s"' % request.raw_post_data
    return HttpResponse("OK")

I had the same problem. I had been posting a complex JSON response, and I couldn’t read my data using the request.POST dictionary.

My JSON POST data was:

//JavaScript code:
//Requires json2.js and jQuery.
var response = {data:[{"a":1, "b":2},{"a":2, "b":2}]}
json_response = JSON.stringify(response); // proper serialization method, read 
                                          // http://ejohn.org/blog/ecmascript-5-strict-mode-json-and-more/
$.post('url',json_response);

In this case you need to use method provided by aurealus. Read the request.body and deserialize it with the json stdlib.

#Django code:
import json
def save_data(request):
  if request.method == 'POST':
    json_data = json.loads(request.body) # request.raw_post_data w/ Django < 1.4
    try:
      data = json_data['data']
    except KeyError:
      HttpResponseServerError("Malformed data!")
    HttpResponse("Got json data")

Method 1

Client : Send as JSON

$.ajax({
    url: 'example.com/ajax/',
    type: 'POST',
    contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
    processData: false,
    data: JSON.stringify({'name':'John', 'age': 42}),
    ...
});

//Sent as a JSON object {'name':'John', 'age': 42}

Server :

data = json.loads(request.body) # {'name':'John', 'age': 42}

Method 2

Client : Send as x-www-form-urlencoded
(Note: contentType & processData have changed, JSON.stringify is not needed)

$.ajax({
    url: 'example.com/ajax/',
    type: 'POST',    
    data: {'name':'John', 'age': 42},
    contentType: 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8',  //Default
    processData: true,       
});

//Sent as a query string name=John&age=42

Server :

data = request.POST # will be <QueryDict: {u'name':u'John', u'age': 42}>

Changed in 1.5+ : https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/releases/1.5/#non-form-data-in-http-requests

Non-form data in HTTP requests :
request.POST will no longer include data posted via HTTP requests with non form-specific content-types in the header. In prior versions, data posted with content-types other than multipart/form-data or application/x-www-form-urlencoded would still end up represented in the request.POST attribute. Developers wishing to access the raw POST data for these cases, should use the request.body attribute instead.

Probably related

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/django-developers/s8OZ9yNh-8c/yWeY138TpFEJ
• https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/17942 . Fixed in 1.7
• http://homakov.blogspot.in/2012/06/x-www-form-urlencoded-vs-json-pros-and.html

Its important to remember Python 3 has a different way to represent strings – they are byte arrays.

Using Django 1.9 and Python 2.7 and sending the JSON data in the main body (not a header) you would use something like:

mydata = json.loads(request.body)

But for Django 1.9 and Python 3.4 you would use:

mydata = json.loads(request.body.decode("utf-8"))

I just went through this learning curve making my first Py3 Django app!

request.raw_response is now deprecated. Use request.body instead to process non-conventional form data such as XML payloads, binary images, etc.

Django documentation on the issue.

on django 1.6 python 3.3

client

$.ajax({
    url: '/urll/',
    type: 'POST',
    contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
    data: JSON.stringify(json_object),
    dataType: 'json',
    success: function(result) {
        alert(result.Result);
    }
});

server

def urll(request):

if request.is_ajax():
    if request.method == 'POST':
        print ('Raw Data:', request.body) 

        print ('type(request.body):', type(request.body)) # this type is bytes

        print(json.loads(request.body.decode("utf-8")))

The HTTP POST payload is just a flat bunch of bytes. Django (like most frameworks) decodes it into a dictionary from either URL encoded parameters, or MIME-multipart encoding. If you just dump the JSON data in the POST content, Django won’t decode it. Either do the JSON decoding from the full POST content (not the dictionary); or put the JSON data into a MIME-multipart wrapper.

In short, show the JavaScript code. The problem seems to be there.

request.raw_post_data has been deprecated. Use request.body instead

Something like this. It’s worked: Request data from client

registerData = {
{% for field in userFields%}
  {{ field.name }}: {{ field.name }},
{% endfor %}
}


var request = $.ajax({
   url: "{% url 'MainApp:rq-create-account-json' %}",
   method: "POST",
   async: false,
   contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
   data: JSON.stringify(registerData),
   dataType: "json"
});

request.done(function (msg) {
   [alert(msg);]
   alert(msg.name);
});

request.fail(function (jqXHR, status) {
  alert(status);
});

Process request at the server

@csrf_exempt
def rq_create_account_json(request):
   if request.is_ajax():
       if request.method == 'POST':
           json_data = json.loads(request.body)
           print(json_data)
           return JsonResponse(json_data)
   return HttpResponse("Error")

html code 

file name  : view.html


    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
    <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script>
    $(document).ready(function(){
        $("#mySelect").change(function(){
            selected = $("#mySelect option:selected").text()
            $.ajax({
                type: 'POST',
                dataType: 'json',
                contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
                url: '/view/',
                data: {
                       'fruit': selected
                      },
                success: function(result) {
                        document.write(result)
                        }
        });
      });
    });
    </script>
    </head>
    <body>

    <form>
        <br>
    Select your favorite fruit:
    <select id="mySelect">
      <option value="apple" selected >Select fruit</option>
      <option value="apple">Apple</option>
      <option value="orange">Orange</option>
      <option value="pineapple">Pineapple</option>
      <option value="banana">Banana</option>
    </select>
    </form>
    </body>
    </html>

Django code:


Inside views.py


def view(request):

    if request.method == 'POST':
        print request.body
        data = request.body
        return HttpResponse(json.dumps(data))

Using Angular you should add header to request or add it to module config headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}

$http({
    url: url,
    method: method,
    timeout: timeout,
    data: data,
    headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}
})

request.POST is just a dictionary-like object, so just index into it with dict syntax.

Assuming your form field is fred, you could do something like this:

if 'fred' in request.POST:
    mydata = request.POST['fred']

Alternately, use a form object to deal with the POST data.