Python POST data using mod_wsgi
Question
This must be a very simple question, but I don't seem to be able to figure out.
I'm using apache + mod_wsgi to host my python application, and I'd like to get the post content submitted in one of the forms -however, neither the environment values, nor sys.stdin contains any of this data. Mind giving me a quick hand?
Edit: Tried already:
- environ["CONTENT_TYPE"] = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' (no data)
- environ["wsgi.input"] seems a plausible way, however, both environ["wsgi.input"].read(), and environ["wsgi.input"].read(-1) returns an empty string (yes, content has been posted, and environ["request_method"] = "post"
Solution
PEP 333 says you must read environ['wsgi.input'].
I just saved the following code and made apache's mod_wsgi run it. It works.
You must be doing something wrong.
from pprint import pformat
def application(environ, start_response):
# show the environment:
output = ['<pre>']
output.append(pformat(environ))
output.append('</pre>')
#create a simple form:
output.append('<form method="post">')
output.append('<input type="text" name="test">')
output.append('<input type="submit">')
output.append('</form>')
if environ['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST':
# show form data as received by POST:
output.append('<h1>FORM DATA</h1>')
output.append(pformat(environ['wsgi.input'].read()))
# send results
output_len = sum(len(line) for line in output)
start_response('200 OK', [('Content-type', 'text/html'),
('Content-Length', str(output_len))])
return output
OTHER TIPS
Be aware that technically speaking calling read() or read(-1) on wsgi.input is a violation of the WSGI specification even though Apache/mod_wsgi allows it. This is because the WSGI specification requires that a valid length argument be supplied. The WSGI specification also says you shouldn't read more data than is specified by the CONTENT_LENGTH.
So, the code above may work in Apache/mod_wsgi but it isn't portable WSGI code and will fail on some other WSGI implementations. To be correct, determine request content length and supply that value to read().