Acessing POST field data without a form (REST api) using Django

Question

In the django documentation, it says:

HttpRequest.POST

A dictionary-like object containing all given HTTP POST parameters, providing that the request contains form data. See the QueryDict documentation below. If you need to access raw or non-form data posted in the request, access this through the HttpRequest.body attribute instead.

However, the server does not respond to a browser (such as using JS frameworks or a form) but instead a REST api sent by an Anroid/iOS application.

If the client sends fields directly in a POST request, how can I read the data? For example, this (Java + Unirest):

Unirest.post("/path/to/server")
       .field("field1", "value2")
       .field("field2", "value2");

EDIT: Can I simply read the data usingresponse.POST["field1"], or will I have to do something with request.body?

EDIT 2: So I can simply use request.body as a dictionary-like object similar to request.POST?

Answer 1

As far as I understand the field method from Unirest just uses normal application/x-www-form-urlencoded data like a HTML form. So you should be able to just use response.POST["field1"] like you suggested.

Answer 2

From the docs:

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.

---

Can I simply read the data using response.POST["field1"], or will I have to do something with request.body?

So I can simply use request.body as a dictionary-like object similar to request.POST?

An example - From a create method (viewsets):

user = dict(
                full_name=request.DATA['full_name'],
                password=request.DATA['password'],
                email=request.DATA['email'],
                personal_number=request.DATA['personal_number'],
                user_type=request.DATA['user_type'],
                profile_id=request.DATA['profile_id'],
                account_id=request.DATA['account_id']
            )

Edit 1: In version 3 (latest) - request.DATA has been replaced with request.data:

user = dict(
                    full_name=request.data['full_name'],
                    password=request.data['password'],
                    email=request.data['email'],
                    personal_number=request.data['personal_number'],
                    user_type=request.data['user_type'],
                    profile_id=request.data['profile_id'],
                    account_id=request.data['account_id']
                )