[python] Python Flask, how to set content type

I am using Flask and I return an XML file from a get request. How do I set the content type to xml ?

e.g.

@app.route('/ajax_ddl')
def ajax_ddl():
    xml = 'foo'
    header("Content-type: text/xml")
    return xml

This question is related to python flask

The answer is


Usually you don’t have to create the Response object yourself because make_response() will take care of that for you.

from flask import Flask, make_response                                      
app = Flask(__name__)                                                       

@app.route('/')                                                             
def index():                                                                
    bar = '<body>foo</body>'                                                
    response = make_response(bar)                                           
    response.headers['Content-Type'] = 'text/xml; charset=utf-8'            
    return response

One more thing, it seems that no one mentioned the after_this_request, I want to say something:

after_this_request

Executes a function after this request. This is useful to modify response objects. The function is passed the response object and has to return the same or a new one.

so we can do it with after_this_request, the code should look like this:

from flask import Flask, after_this_request
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def index():
    @after_this_request
    def add_header(response):
        response.headers['Content-Type'] = 'text/xml; charset=utf-8'
        return response
    return '<body>foobar</body>'

from flask import Flask, render_template, make_response
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/user/xml')
def user_xml():
    resp = make_response(render_template('xml/user.html', username='Ryan'))
    resp.headers['Content-type'] = 'text/xml; charset=utf-8'
    return resp

I like and upvoted @Simon Sapin's answer. I ended up taking a slightly different tack, however, and created my own decorator:

from flask import Response
from functools import wraps

def returns_xml(f):
    @wraps(f)
    def decorated_function(*args, **kwargs):
        r = f(*args, **kwargs)
        return Response(r, content_type='text/xml; charset=utf-8')
    return decorated_function

and use it thus:

@app.route('/ajax_ddl')
@returns_xml
def ajax_ddl():
    xml = 'foo'
    return xml

I think this is slightly more comfortable.


Use the make_response method to get a response with your data. Then set the mimetype attribute. Finally return this response:

@app.route('/ajax_ddl')
def ajax_ddl():
    xml = 'foo'
    resp = app.make_response(xml)
    resp.mimetype = "text/xml"
    return resp

If you use Response directly, you lose the chance to customize the responses by setting app.response_class. The make_response method uses the app.responses_class to make the response object. In this you can create your own class, add make your application uses it globally:

class MyResponse(app.response_class):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(MyResponse, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.set_cookie("last-visit", time.ctime())

app.response_class = MyResponse  

You can try the following method(python3.6.2):

case one:

@app.route('/hello')
def hello():

    headers={ 'content-type':'text/plain' ,'location':'http://www.stackoverflow'}
    response = make_response('<h1>hello world</h1>',301)
    response.headers = headers
    return response

case two:

@app.route('/hello')
def hello():

    headers={ 'content-type':'text/plain' ,'location':'http://www.stackoverflow.com'}
    return '<h1>hello world</h1>',301,headers

I am using Flask .And if you want to return json,you can write this:

import json # 
@app.route('/search/<keyword>')
def search(keyword):

    result = Book.search_by_keyword(keyword)
    return json.dumps(result),200,{'content-type':'application/json'}


from flask import jsonify
@app.route('/search/<keyword>')
def search(keyword):

    result = Book.search_by_keyword(keyword)
    return jsonify(result)

As simple as this

x = "some data you want to return"
return x, 200, {'Content-Type': 'text/css; charset=utf-8'}

Hope it helps

Update: Use this method because it will work with both python 2.x and python 3.x

and secondly it also eliminates multiple header problem.

from flask import Response
r = Response(response="TEST OK", status=200, mimetype="application/xml")
r.headers["Content-Type"] = "text/xml; charset=utf-8"
return r