How do I return JSON without using a template in Django

Question

This is related to this question  Django return json and html depending on client python    I have a command line Python API for a Django app  When I access the app through the API it should return JSON and with a browser it should return HTML  I can use different URLs to access the different versions but how do I render the HTML template and JSON in the views py with just one template   To render the HTML I would use   return render to response  sample sample html         But how would I do the same for JSON without putting a JSON template   the content-type should be application json instead of text html   What would determine the JSON and HTML outputs   So in my views py   if something      return render to response  html template         else      return HttpReponse jsondata mimetype  application json

User · Answer

If you want to pass the result as a rendered template you have to load and render a template, pass the result of rendering it to the json.This could look like that:

from django.template import loader, RequestContext

#render the template
t=loader.get_template('sample/sample.html')
context=RequestContext()
html=t.render(context)

#create the json
result={'html_result':html)
json = simplejson.dumps(result)

return HttpResponse(json)

That way you can pass a rendered template as json to your client. This can be useful if you want to completely replace ie. a containing lots of different elements.

User · Answer

Here s an example I needed for conditionally rendering json or html depending on the Request s Accept header    myapp views py from django core import serializers                                                                                 from django http import HttpResponse                                                                                   from django shortcuts import render                                                                                    from  models import Event  def event index request                                                                                                    event list   Event objects all                                                                                         if request META  HTTP ACCEPT       application json                                                                        response   serializers serialize  json   event list                                                                    return HttpResponse response  content type  application json                                                       else                                                                                                                       context     event list   event list                                                                                    return render request   polls event list html   context    you can test this with curl or httpie    http localhost 8000 event    http localhost 8000 event  Accept application json   note I opted not to use JsonReponse as that would reserialize the model unnecessarily

User · Answer

I think the issue has gotten confused regarding what you want  I imagine you re not actually trying to put the HTML in the JSON response  but rather want to alternatively return either HTML or JSON  First  you need to understand the core difference between the two  HTML is a presentational format  It deals more with how to display data than the data itself  JSON is the opposite  It s pure data -- basically a JavaScript representation of some Python  in this case  dataset you have  It serves as merely an interchange layer  allowing you to move data from one area of your app  the view  to another area of your app  your JavaScript  which normally don t have access to each other  With that in mind  you don t  quot render quot  JSON  and there s no templates involved  You merely convert whatever data is in play  most likely pretty much what you re passing as the context to your template  to JSON  Which can be done via either Django s JSON library  simplejson   if it s freeform data  or its serialization framework  if it s a queryset  simplejson from django utils import simplejson  some data to dump         some var 1    foo       some var 2    bar      data   simplejson dumps some data to dump   Serialization from django core import serializers  foos   Foo objects all    data   serializers serialize  json   foos   Either way  you then pass that data into the response  return HttpResponse data  content type  application json     Edit  In Django 1 6 and earlier  the code to return response was return HttpResponse data  mimetype  application json     EDIT   simplejson was remove from django  you can use  import json  json dumps   quot foo quot    quot bar quot     Or you can use the django core serializers as described above

User · Answer

For rendering my models in JSON in django 1 9 I had to do the following in my views py   from django core import serializers from django http import HttpResponse from  models import Mymodel  def index request       objs   Mymodel objects all       jsondata   serializers serialize  json   objs      return HttpResponse jsondata  content type  application json

User · Answer

You could also check the request accept content type as specified in the rfc  That way you can render by default HTML and where your client accept application jason you can return json in your response without a template being required

User · Answer

from django utils import simplejson  from django core import serializers   def pagina json request       misdatos   misdatos objects all      data   serializers serialize  json   misdatos      return HttpResponse data  mimetype  application json

User · Answer

In Django 1 7 this is even easier with the built-in JsonResponse   https   docs djangoproject com en dev ref request-response  jsonresponse-objects    import it from django http import JsonResponse  def my view request          do something with the your data     data             just return a JsonResponse     return JsonResponse data

User · Answer

In the case of the JSON response there is no template to be rendered  Templates are for generating HTML responses  The JSON is the HTTP response   However  you can have HTML that is rendered from a template withing your JSON response   html   render to string  some html   some dictionary  serialized data   simplejson dumps   html   html   return HttpResponse serialized data  mimetype  application json

User · Answer

It looks like the Django REST framework uses the HTTP accept header in a Request in order to automatically determine which renderer to use   http   www django-rest-framework org api-guide renderers   Using the HTTP accept header may provide an alternative source for your  if something

[python] How do I return JSON without using a template in Django?

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