Why is Django's client.post nesting arg values in lists?

Question

I’m unit testing my api with Django like this:

result = self.client.post( reverse(path), { "arg1":"value" })

Inside the view, I breakpoint.

@api_view(["POST"])
def post_arg(request):
    breakpoint()

But when I print the POST data, the values have been added to lists.

(Pdb) request.POST
{ 'arg1': ['value'] }

This example only has one arg, but if I add more they are each added to a list. I don’t think this happens when my frontend posts data, so why does it here? And is there a way to not have the values added to a list?

Asked By: Gavin Ray

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Source

Answer 1

I don’t think this happens when my frontend posts data.

The same key can be associated multiple times to a value, for example when you use a checkbox with:

<input type="checkbox" name="foo" value="bar">
<input type="checkbox" name="foo" value="qux">

If you check both checkboxes, it will add foo=bar&foo=qux to the request body, so the same key (foo) is associated to both bar and qux.

If you use request.POST['foo'] it will return the value of the last record, so 'qux'. You can also use request.POST.getlist('foo') it will return all values for that key in a list, so ['bar', 'qux'].

Answered By: Willem Van Onsem

Why is Django's client.post nesting arg values in lists?

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