============================
Request and response objects
============================
.. module:: django.http
:synopsis: Classes dealing with HTTP requests and responses.
Quick overview
==============
Django uses request and response objects to pass state through the system.
When a page is requested, Django creates an :class:`HttpRequest` object that
contains metadata about the request. Then Django loads the appropriate view,
passing the :class:`HttpRequest` as the first argument to the view function.
Each view is responsible for returning an :class:`HttpResponse` object.
This document explains the APIs for :class:`HttpRequest` and
:class:`HttpResponse` objects, which are defined in the :mod:`django.http`
module.
HttpRequest objects
===================
.. class:: HttpRequest
.. _httprequest-attributes:
Attributes
----------
All attributes should be considered read-only, unless stated otherwise below.
``session`` is a notable exception.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.body
The raw HTTP request body as a byte string. This is useful for processing
data in different ways than conventional HTML forms: binary images,
XML payload etc. For processing conventional form data, use ``HttpRequest.POST``.
You can also read from an HttpRequest using a file-like interface. See
:meth:`HttpRequest.read()`.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.path
A string representing the full path to the requested page, not including
the domain.
Example: ``"/music/bands/the_beatles/"``
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.path_info
Under some Web server configurations, the portion of the URL after the
host name is split up into a script prefix portion and a path info
portion. The ``path_info`` attribute always contains the path info portion
of the path, no matter what Web server is being used. Using this instead
of :attr:`~HttpRequest.path` can make your code easier to move between
test and deployment servers.
For example, if the ``WSGIScriptAlias`` for your application is set to
``"/minfo"``, then ``path`` might be ``"/minfo/music/bands/the_beatles/"``
and ``path_info`` would be ``"/music/bands/the_beatles/"``.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.method
A string representing the HTTP method used in the request. This is
guaranteed to be uppercase. Example::
if request.method == 'GET':
do_something()
elif request.method == 'POST':
do_something_else()
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.encoding
A string representing the current encoding used to decode form submission
data (or ``None``, which means the :setting:`DEFAULT_CHARSET` setting is
used). You can write to this attribute to change the encoding used when
accessing the form data. Any subsequent attribute accesses (such as reading
from ``GET`` or ``POST``) will use the new ``encoding`` value. Useful if
you know the form data is not in the :setting:`DEFAULT_CHARSET` encoding.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.GET
A dictionary-like object containing all given HTTP GET parameters. See the
:class:`QueryDict` documentation below.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.POST
A dictionary-like object containing all given HTTP POST parameters,
providing that the request contains form data. See the
:class:`QueryDict` documentation below. If you need to access raw or
non-form data posted in the request, access this through the
:attr:`HttpRequest.body` attribute instead.
.. versionchanged:: 1.5
Before Django 1.5, HttpRequest.POST contained non-form data.
It's possible that a request can come in via POST with an empty ``POST``
dictionary -- if, say, a form is requested via the POST HTTP method but
does not include form data. Therefore, you shouldn't use ``if request.POST``
to check for use of the POST method; instead, use ``if request.method ==
"POST"`` (see above).
Note: ``POST`` does *not* include file-upload information. See ``FILES``.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.REQUEST
For convenience, a dictionary-like object that searches ``POST`` first,
then ``GET``. Inspired by PHP's ``$_REQUEST``.
For example, if ``GET = {"name": "john"}`` and ``POST = {"age": '34'}``,
``REQUEST["name"]`` would be ``"john"``, and ``REQUEST["age"]`` would be
``"34"``.
It's strongly suggested that you use ``GET`` and ``POST`` instead of
``REQUEST``, because the former are more explicit.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.COOKIES
A standard Python dictionary containing all cookies. Keys and values are
strings.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.FILES
A dictionary-like object containing all uploaded files. Each key in
``FILES`` is the ``name`` from the ``<input type="file" name="" />``. Each
value in ``FILES`` is an :class:`UploadedFile` as described below.
See :doc:`/topics/files` for more information.
Note that ``FILES`` will only contain data if the request method was POST
and the ``<form>`` that posted to the request had
``enctype="multipart/form-data"``. Otherwise, ``FILES`` will be a blank
dictionary-like object.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.META
A standard Python dictionary containing all available HTTP headers.
Available headers depend on the client and server, but here are some
examples:
* ``CONTENT_LENGTH`` -- the length of the request body (as a string).
* ``CONTENT_TYPE`` -- the MIME type of the request body.
* ``HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING`` -- Acceptable encodings for the response.
* ``HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE`` -- Acceptable languages for the response.
* ``HTTP_HOST`` -- The HTTP Host header sent by the client.
* ``HTTP_REFERER`` -- The referring page, if any.
* ``HTTP_USER_AGENT`` -- The client's user-agent string.
* ``QUERY_STRING`` -- The query string, as a single (unparsed) string.
* ``REMOTE_ADDR`` -- The IP address of the client.
* ``REMOTE_HOST`` -- The hostname of the client.
* ``REMOTE_USER`` -- The user authenticated by the Web server, if any.
* ``REQUEST_METHOD`` -- A string such as ``"GET"`` or ``"POST"``.
* ``SERVER_NAME`` -- The hostname of the server.
* ``SERVER_PORT`` -- The port of the server (as a string).
With the exception of ``CONTENT_LENGTH`` and ``CONTENT_TYPE``, as given
above, any HTTP headers in the request are converted to ``META`` keys by
converting all characters to uppercase, replacing any hyphens with
underscores and adding an ``HTTP_`` prefix to the name. So, for example, a
header called ``X-Bender`` would be mapped to the ``META`` key
``HTTP_X_BENDER``.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.user
An object of type :setting:`AUTH_USER_MODEL` representing the currently
logged-in user. If the user isn't currently logged in, ``user`` will be set
to an instance of :class:`django.contrib.auth.models.AnonymousUser`. You
can tell them apart with
:meth:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.is_authenticated`, like so::
if request.user.is_authenticated():
# Do something for logged-in users.
else:
# Do something for anonymous users.
``user`` is only available if your Django installation has the
:class:`~django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware`
activated. For more, see :doc:`/topics/auth/index`.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.session
A readable-and-writable, dictionary-like object that represents the current
session. This is only available if your Django installation has session
support activated. See the :doc:`session documentation
</topics/http/sessions>` for full details.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.urlconf
Not defined by Django itself, but will be read if other code (e.g., a custom
middleware class) sets it. When present, this will be used as the root
URLconf for the current request, overriding the :setting:`ROOT_URLCONF`
setting. See :ref:`how-django-processes-a-request` for details.
.. attribute:: HttpRequest.resolver_match
.. versionadded:: 1.5
An instance of :class:`~django.core.urlresolvers.ResolverMatch` representing
the resolved url. This attribute is only set after url resolving took place,
which means it's available in all views but not in middleware methods which
are executed before url resolving takes place (like ``process_request``, you
can use ``process_view`` instead).
Methods
-------
.. method:: HttpRequest.get_host()
Returns the originating host of the request using information from the
``HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST`` (if :setting:`USE_X_FORWARDED_HOST` is enabled)
and ``HTTP_HOST`` headers, in that order. If they don't provide a value,
the method uses a combination of ``SERVER_NAME`` and ``SERVER_PORT`` as
detailed in :pep:`3333`.
Example: ``"127.0.0.1:8000"``
.. note:: The :meth:`~HttpRequest.get_host()` method fails when the host is
behind multiple proxies. One solution is to use middleware to rewrite
the proxy headers, as in the following example::
class MultipleProxyMiddleware(object):
FORWARDED_FOR_FIELDS = [
'HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR',
'HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST',
'HTTP_X_FORWARDED_SERVER',
]
def process_request(self, request):
"""
Rewrites the proxy headers so that only the most
recent proxy is used.
"""
for field in self.FORWARDED_FOR_FIELDS:
if field in request.META:
if ',' in request.META[field]:
parts = request.META[field].split(',')
request.META[field] = parts[-1].strip()
This middleware should be positioned before any other middleware that
relies on the value of :meth:`~HttpRequest.get_host()` -- for instance,
:class:`~django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware` or
:class:`~django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware`.
.. method:: HttpRequest.get_full_path()
Returns the ``path``, plus an appended query string, if applicable.
Example: ``"/music/bands/the_beatles/?print=true"``
.. method:: HttpRequest.build_absolute_uri(location)
Returns the absolute URI form of ``location``. If no location is provided,
the location will be set to ``request.get_full_path()``.
If the location is already an absolute URI, it will not be altered.
Otherwise the absolute URI is built using the server variables available in
this request.
Example: ``"http://example.com/music/bands/the_beatles/?print=true"``
.. method:: HttpRequest.get_signed_cookie(key, default=RAISE_ERROR, salt='', max_age=None)
Returns a cookie value for a signed cookie, or raises a
``django.core.signing.BadSignature`` exception if the signature is
no longer valid. If you provide the ``default`` argument the exception
will be suppressed and that default value will be returned instead.
The optional ``salt`` argument can be used to provide extra protection
against brute force attacks on your secret key. If supplied, the
``max_age`` argument will be checked against the signed timestamp
attached to the cookie value to ensure the cookie is not older than
``max_age`` seconds.
For example::
>>> request.get_signed_cookie('name')
'Tony'
>>> request.get_signed_cookie('name', salt='name-salt')
'Tony' # assuming cookie was set using the same salt
>>> request.get_signed_cookie('non-existing-cookie')
...
KeyError: 'non-existing-cookie'
>>> request.get_signed_cookie('non-existing-cookie', False)
False
>>> request.get_signed_cookie('cookie-that-was-tampered-with')
...
BadSignature: ...
>>> request.get_signed_cookie('name', max_age=60)
...
SignatureExpired: Signature age 1677.3839159 > 60 seconds
>>> request.get_signed_cookie('name', False, max_age=60)
False
See :doc:`cryptographic signing </topics/signing>` for more information.
.. method:: HttpRequest.is_secure()
Returns ``True`` if the request is secure; that is, if it was made with
HTTPS.
.. method:: HttpRequest.is_ajax()
Returns ``True`` if the request was made via an ``XMLHttpRequest``, by
checking the ``HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH`` header for the string
``'XMLHttpRequest'``. Most modern JavaScript libraries send this header.
If you write your own XMLHttpRequest call (on the browser side), you'll
have to set this header manually if you want ``is_ajax()`` to work.
If a response varies on whether or not it's requested via AJAX and you are
using some form of caching like Django's :mod:`cache middleware
<django.middleware.cache>`, you should decorate the view with
:func:`vary_on_headers('HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH')
<django.views.decorators.vary.vary_on_headers>` so that the responses are
properly cached.
.. method:: HttpRequest.read(size=None)
.. method:: HttpRequest.readline()
.. method:: HttpRequest.readlines()
.. method:: HttpRequest.xreadlines()
.. method:: HttpRequest.__iter__()
Methods implementing a file-like interface for reading from an
HttpRequest instance. This makes it possible to consume an incoming
request in a streaming fashion. A common use-case would be to process a
big XML payload with iterative parser without constructing a whole
XML tree in memory.
Given this standard interface, an HttpRequest instance can be
passed directly to an XML parser such as ElementTree::
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
for element in ET.iterparse(request):
process(element)
UploadedFile objects
====================
.. class:: UploadedFile
Attributes
----------
.. attribute:: UploadedFile.name
The name of the uploaded file.
.. attribute:: UploadedFile.size
The size, in bytes, of the uploaded file.
Methods
----------
.. method:: UploadedFile.chunks(chunk_size=None)
Returns a generator that yields sequential chunks of data.
.. method:: UploadedFile.read(num_bytes=None)
Read a number of bytes from the file.
QueryDict objects
=================
.. class:: QueryDict
In an :class:`HttpRequest` object, the ``GET`` and ``POST`` attributes are
instances of ``django.http.QueryDict``, a dictionary-like class customized to
deal with multiple values for the same key. This is necessary because some HTML
form elements, notably ``<select multiple>``, pass multiple values for the same
key.
The ``QueryDict``\ s at ``request.POST`` and ``request.GET`` will be immutable
when accessed in a normal request/response cycle. To get a mutable version you
need to use ``.copy()``.
Methods
-------
:class:`QueryDict` implements all the standard dictionary methods because it's
a subclass of dictionary. Exceptions are outlined here:
.. method:: QueryDict.__init__(query_string, mutable=False, encoding=None)
Instantiates a ``QueryDict`` object based on ``query_string``.
>>> QueryDict('a=1&a=2&c=3')
<QueryDict: {u'a': [u'1', u'2'], u'b': [u'1']}>
Most ``QueryDict``\ s you encounter, and in particular those at
``request.POST`` and ``request.GET``, will be immutable. If you are
instantiating one yourself, you can make it mutable by passing
``mutable=True`` to its ``__init__()``.
Strings for setting both keys and values will be converted from ``encoding``
to unicode. If encoding is not set, it defaults to :setting:`DEFAULT_CHARSET`.
.. method:: QueryDict.__getitem__(key)
Returns the value for the given key. If the key has more than one value,
``__getitem__()`` returns the last value. Raises
``django.utils.datastructures.MultiValueDictKeyError`` if the key does not
exist. (This is a subclass of Python's standard ``KeyError``, so you can
stick to catching ``KeyError``.)
.. method:: QueryDict.__setitem__(key, value)
Sets the given key to ``[value]`` (a Python list whose single element is
``value``). Note that this, as other dictionary functions that have side
effects, can only be called on a mutable ``QueryDict`` (such as one that
was created via ``copy()``).
.. method:: QueryDict.__contains__(key)
Returns ``True`` if the given key is set. This lets you do, e.g., ``if "foo"
in request.GET``.
.. method:: QueryDict.get(key, default)
Uses the same logic as ``__getitem__()`` above, with a hook for returning a
default value if the key doesn't exist.
.. method:: QueryDict.setdefault(key, default)
Just like the standard dictionary ``setdefault()`` method, except it uses
``__setitem__()`` internally.
.. method:: QueryDict.update(other_dict)
Takes either a ``QueryDict`` or standard dictionary. Just like the standard
dictionary ``update()`` method, except it *appends* to the current
dictionary items rather than replacing them. For example::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=1', mutable=True)
>>> q.update({'a': '2'})
>>> q.getlist('a')
[u'1', u'2']
>>> q['a'] # returns the last
[u'2']
.. method:: QueryDict.items()
Just like the standard dictionary ``items()`` method, except this uses the
same last-value logic as ``__getitem__()``. For example::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=1&a=2&a=3')
>>> q.items()
[(u'a', u'3')]
.. method:: QueryDict.iteritems()
Just like the standard dictionary ``iteritems()`` method. Like
:meth:`QueryDict.items()` this uses the same last-value logic as
:meth:`QueryDict.__getitem__()`.
.. method:: QueryDict.iterlists()
Like :meth:`QueryDict.iteritems()` except it includes all values, as a list,
for each member of the dictionary.
.. method:: QueryDict.values()
Just like the standard dictionary ``values()`` method, except this uses the
same last-value logic as ``__getitem__()``. For example::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=1&a=2&a=3')
>>> q.values()
[u'3']
.. method:: QueryDict.itervalues()
Just like :meth:`QueryDict.values()`, except an iterator.
In addition, ``QueryDict`` has the following methods:
.. method:: QueryDict.copy()
Returns a copy of the object, using ``copy.deepcopy()`` from the Python
standard library. This copy will be mutable even if the original was not.
.. method:: QueryDict.getlist(key, default)
Returns the data with the requested key, as a Python list. Returns an
empty list if the key doesn't exist and no default value was provided.
It's guaranteed to return a list of some sort unless the default value
was no list.
.. method:: QueryDict.setlist(key, list_)
Sets the given key to ``list_`` (unlike ``__setitem__()``).
.. method:: QueryDict.appendlist(key, item)
Appends an item to the internal list associated with key.
.. method:: QueryDict.setlistdefault(key, default_list)
Just like ``setdefault``, except it takes a list of values instead of a
single value.
.. method:: QueryDict.lists()
Like :meth:`items()`, except it includes all values, as a list, for each
member of the dictionary. For example::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=1&a=2&a=3')
>>> q.lists()
[(u'a', [u'1', u'2', u'3'])]
.. method:: QueryDict.pop(key)
Returns a list of values for the given key and removes them from the
dictionary. Raises ``KeyError`` if the key does not exist. For example::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=1&a=2&a=3', mutable=True)
>>> q.pop('a')
[u'1', u'2', u'3']
.. method:: QueryDict.popitem()
Removes an arbitrary member of the dictionary (since there's no concept
of ordering), and returns a two value tuple containing the key and a list
of all values for the key. Raises ``KeyError`` when called on an empty
dictionary. For example::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=1&a=2&a=3', mutable=True)
>>> q.popitem()
(u'a', [u'1', u'2', u'3'])
.. method:: QueryDict.dict()
Returns ``dict`` representation of ``QueryDict``. For every (key, list)
pair in ``QueryDict``, ``dict`` will have (key, item), where item is one
element of the list, using same logic as :meth:`QueryDict.__getitem__()`::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=1&a=3&a=5')
>>> q.dict()
{u'a': u'5'}
.. method:: QueryDict.urlencode([safe])
Returns a string of the data in query-string format. Example::
>>> q = QueryDict('a=2&b=3&b=5')
>>> q.urlencode()
'a=2&b=3&b=5'
Optionally, urlencode can be passed characters which
do not require encoding. For example::
>>> q = QueryDict('', mutable=True)
>>> q['next'] = '/a&b/'
>>> q.urlencode(safe='/')
'next=/a%26b/'
HttpResponse objects
====================
.. class:: HttpResponse
In contrast to :class:`HttpRequest` objects, which are created automatically by
Django, :class:`HttpResponse` objects are your responsibility. Each view you
write is responsible for instantiating, populating and returning an
:class:`HttpResponse`.
The :class:`HttpResponse` class lives in the :mod:`django.http` module.
Usage
-----
Passing strings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Typical usage is to pass the contents of the page, as a string, to the
:class:`HttpResponse` constructor::
>>> from django.http import HttpResponse
>>> response = HttpResponse("Here's the text of the Web page.")
>>> response = HttpResponse("Text only, please.", content_type="text/plain")
But if you want to add content incrementally, you can use ``response`` as a
file-like object::
>>> response = HttpResponse()
>>> response.write("<p>Here's the text of the Web page.</p>")
>>> response.write("<p>Here's another paragraph.</p>")
Passing iterators
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finally, you can pass ``HttpResponse`` an iterator rather than strings. If you
use this technique, the iterator should return strings.
Passing an iterator as content to :class:`HttpResponse` creates a
streaming response if (and only if) no middleware accesses the
:attr:`HttpResponse.content` attribute before the response is returned.
.. versionchanged:: 1.5
This technique is fragile and was deprecated in Django 1.5. If you need the
response to be streamed from the iterator to the client, you should use the
:class:`StreamingHttpResponse` class instead.
As of Django 1.7, when :class:`HttpResponse` is instantiated with an
iterator, it will consume it immediately, store the response content as a
string, and discard the iterator.
.. versionchanged:: 1.5
You can now use :class:`HttpResponse` as a file-like object even if it was
instantiated with an iterator. Django will consume and save the content of
the iterator on first access.
Setting header fields
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To set or remove a header field in your response, treat it like a dictionary::
>>> response = HttpResponse()
>>> response['Age'] = 120
>>> del response['Age']
Note that unlike a dictionary, ``del`` doesn't raise ``KeyError`` if the header
field doesn't exist.
For setting the ``Cache-Control`` and ``Vary`` header fields, it is recommended
to use the :func:`~django.utils.cache.patch_cache_control` and
:func:`~django.utils.cache.patch_vary_headers` methods from
:mod:`django.utils.cache`, since these fields can have multiple, comma-separated
values. The "patch" methods ensure that other values, e.g. added by a
middleware, are not removed.
HTTP header fields cannot contain newlines. An attempt to set a header field
containing a newline character (CR or LF) will raise ``BadHeaderError``
Telling the browser to treat the response as a file attachment
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To tell the browser to treat the response as a file attachment, use the
``content_type`` argument and set the ``Content-Disposition`` header. For example,
this is how you might return a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet::
>>> response = HttpResponse(my_data, content_type='application/vnd.ms-excel')
>>> response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename="foo.xls"'
There's nothing Django-specific about the ``Content-Disposition`` header, but
it's easy to forget the syntax, so we've included it here.
Attributes
----------
.. attribute:: HttpResponse.content
A string representing the content, encoded from a Unicode
object if necessary.
.. attribute:: HttpResponse.status_code
The `HTTP status code`_ for the response.
.. attribute:: HttpResponse.reason_phrase
.. versionadded:: 1.6
The HTTP reason phrase for the response.
.. attribute:: HttpResponse.streaming
This is always ``False``.
This attribute exists so middleware can treat streaming responses
differently from regular responses.
Methods
-------
.. method:: HttpResponse.__init__(content='', content_type=None, status=200, reason=None)
Instantiates an ``HttpResponse`` object with the given page content and
content type.
``content`` should be an iterator or a string. If it's an
iterator, it should return strings, and those strings will be
joined together to form the content of the response. If it is not
an iterator or a string, it will be converted to a string when
accessed.
``content_type`` is the MIME type optionally completed by a character set
encoding and is used to fill the HTTP ``Content-Type`` header. If not
specified, it is formed by the :setting:`DEFAULT_CONTENT_TYPE` and
:setting:`DEFAULT_CHARSET` settings, by default: "`text/html; charset=utf-8`".
Historically, this parameter was called ``mimetype`` (now deprecated).
``status`` is the `HTTP status code`_ for the response.
.. versionadded:: 1.6
``reason`` is the HTTP response phrase. If not provided, a default phrase
will be used.
.. method:: HttpResponse.__setitem__(header, value)
Sets the given header name to the given value. Both ``header`` and
``value`` should be strings.
.. method:: HttpResponse.__delitem__(header)
Deletes the header with the given name. Fails silently if the header
doesn't exist. Case-insensitive.
.. method:: HttpResponse.__getitem__(header)
Returns the value for the given header name. Case-insensitive.
.. method:: HttpResponse.has_header(header)
Returns ``True`` or ``False`` based on a case-insensitive check for a
header with the given name.
.. method:: HttpResponse.set_cookie(key, value='', max_age=None, expires=None, path='/', domain=None, secure=None, httponly=False)
Sets a cookie. The parameters are the same as in the :class:`Cookie.Morsel`
object in the Python standard library.
* ``max_age`` should be a number of seconds, or ``None`` (default) if
the cookie should last only as long as the client's browser session.
If ``expires`` is not specified, it will be calculated.
* ``expires`` should either be a string in the format
``"Wdy, DD-Mon-YY HH:MM:SS GMT"`` or a ``datetime.datetime`` object
in UTC. If ``expires`` is a ``datetime`` object, the ``max_age``
will be calculated.
* Use ``domain`` if you want to set a cross-domain cookie. For example,
``domain=".lawrence.com"`` will set a cookie that is readable by
the domains www.lawrence.com, blogs.lawrence.com and
calendars.lawrence.com. Otherwise, a cookie will only be readable by
the domain that set it.
* Use ``httponly=True`` if you want to prevent client-side
JavaScript from having access to the cookie.
HTTPOnly_ is a flag included in a Set-Cookie HTTP response
header. It is not part of the :rfc:`2109` standard for cookies,
and it isn't honored consistently by all browsers. However,
when it is honored, it can be a useful way to mitigate the
risk of client side script accessing the protected cookie
data.
.. _HTTPOnly: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/HTTPOnly
.. warning::
Both :rfc:`2109` and :rfc:`6265` state that user agents should support
cookies of at least 4096 bytes. For many browsers this is also the
maximum size. Django will not raise an exception if there's an attempt
to store a cookie of more than 4096 bytes, but many browsers will not
set the cookie correctly.
.. method:: HttpResponse.set_signed_cookie(key, value, salt='', max_age=None, expires=None, path='/', domain=None, secure=None, httponly=True)
Like :meth:`~HttpResponse.set_cookie()`, but
:doc:`cryptographic signing </topics/signing>` the cookie before setting
it. Use in conjunction with :meth:`HttpRequest.get_signed_cookie`.
You can use the optional ``salt`` argument for added key strength, but
you will need to remember to pass it to the corresponding
:meth:`HttpRequest.get_signed_cookie` call.
.. method:: HttpResponse.delete_cookie(key, path='/', domain=None)
Deletes the cookie with the given key. Fails silently if the key doesn't
exist.
Due to the way cookies work, ``path`` and ``domain`` should be the same
values you used in ``set_cookie()`` -- otherwise the cookie may not be
deleted.
.. method:: HttpResponse.write(content)
This method makes an :class:`HttpResponse` instance a file-like object.
.. method:: HttpResponse.flush()
This method makes an :class:`HttpResponse` instance a file-like object.
.. method:: HttpResponse.tell()
This method makes an :class:`HttpResponse` instance a file-like object.
.. _HTTP status code: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html#sec10
.. _ref-httpresponse-subclasses:
HttpResponse subclasses
-----------------------
Django includes a number of ``HttpResponse`` subclasses that handle different
types of HTTP responses. Like ``HttpResponse``, these subclasses live in
:mod:`django.http`.
.. class:: HttpResponseRedirect
The first argument to the constructor is required -- the path to redirect
to. This can be a fully qualified URL
(e.g. ``'http://www.yahoo.com/search/'``) or an absolute path with no
domain (e.g. ``'/search/'``). See :class:`HttpResponse` for other optional
constructor arguments. Note that this returns an HTTP status code 302.
.. attribute:: HttpResponseRedirect.url
.. versionadded:: 1.6
This read-only attribute represents the URL the response will redirect
to (equivalent to the ``Location`` response header).
.. class:: HttpResponsePermanentRedirect
Like :class:`HttpResponseRedirect`, but it returns a permanent redirect
(HTTP status code 301) instead of a "found" redirect (status code 302).
.. class:: HttpResponseNotModified
The constructor doesn't take any arguments and no content should be added
to this response. Use this to designate that a page hasn't been modified
since the user's last request (status code 304).
.. class:: HttpResponseBadRequest
Acts just like :class:`HttpResponse` but uses a 400 status code.
.. class:: HttpResponseNotFound
Acts just like :class:`HttpResponse` but uses a 404 status code.
.. class:: HttpResponseForbidden
Acts just like :class:`HttpResponse` but uses a 403 status code.
.. class:: HttpResponseNotAllowed
Like :class:`HttpResponse`, but uses a 405 status code. The first argument
to the constructor is required: a list of permitted methods (e.g.
``['GET', 'POST']``).
.. class:: HttpResponseGone
Acts just like :class:`HttpResponse` but uses a 410 status code.
.. class:: HttpResponseServerError
Acts just like :class:`HttpResponse` but uses a 500 status code.
.. note::
If a custom subclass of :class:`HttpResponse` implements a ``render``
method, Django will treat it as emulating a
:class:`~django.template.response.SimpleTemplateResponse`, and the
``render`` method must itself return a valid response object.
.. _httpresponse-streaming:
StreamingHttpResponse objects
=============================
.. versionadded:: 1.5
.. class:: StreamingHttpResponse
The :class:`StreamingHttpResponse` class is used to stream a response from
Django to the browser. You might want to do this if generating the response
takes too long or uses too much memory. For instance, it's useful for
generating large CSV files.
.. admonition:: Performance considerations
Django is designed for short-lived requests. Streaming responses will tie
a worker process for the entire duration of the response. This may result
in poor performance.
Generally speaking, you should perform expensive tasks outside of the
request-response cycle, rather than resorting to a streamed response.
The :class:`StreamingHttpResponse` is not a subclass of :class:`HttpResponse`,
because it features a slightly different API. However, it is almost identical,
with the following notable differences:
* It should be given an iterator that yields strings as content.
* You cannot access its content, except by iterating the response object
itself. This should only occur when the response is returned to the client.
* It has no ``content`` attribute. Instead, it has a
:attr:`~StreamingHttpResponse.streaming_content` attribute.
* You cannot use the file-like object ``tell()`` or ``write()`` methods.
Doing so will raise an exception.
:class:`StreamingHttpResponse` should only be used in situations where it is
absolutely required that the whole content isn't iterated before transferring
the data to the client. Because the content can't be accessed, many
middlewares can't function normally. For example the ``ETag`` and ``Content-
Length`` headers can't be generated for streaming responses.
Attributes
----------
.. attribute:: StreamingHttpResponse.streaming_content
An iterator of strings representing the content.
.. attribute:: StreamingHttpResponse.status_code
The `HTTP status code`_ for the response.
.. attribute:: StreamingHttpResponse.reason_phrase
.. versionadded:: 1.6
The HTTP reason phrase for the response.
.. attribute:: StreamingHttpResponse.streaming
This is always ``True``.
