How to send POST request to Django REST API using python requests

Question

I have a simple rest api which I want to send a post request to using requests.

My url pattern is this:

url(r'^$', views.ProductList.as_view())

Inside my view I have:

class ProductList(generics.ListAPIView):
    serializer_class = ProductSerializer

    def post(self, request, format=None):
        print('THIS IS A POST REQUEST')
        queryset = [product.name for product in Product.objects.all()]
        return Response(queryset)

And I am trying to send a post request using:

response = requests.post('http://127.0.0.1:8080/')

However this returns a 403, and the print statement isn't printed. I have done some research and I think it may have something to do with the CSRF token not being there but i'm not to sure how to add that. Does anybody know how I can get the post request to work?

I'm using python 3.6.3 and Django 1.10

add the urls. your endpoint needs to be a url connected to the view — Bernard 'Beta Berlin' Parah, May 19 '18 at 20:36
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27315592/csrf-exempt-does-not-work-on-generic-view-based-class csrf exempt your view — harshil9968, May 19 '18 at 20:37
@harshil9968 Thanks. I've added as they've said but still getting 403 — NoisyB, May 19 '18 at 21:20
403 can also mean that the view expects a logged-in user. Is that the case in your setup? — Ralf, May 19 '18 at 21:28
@Ralf No its not the case, Ive updated my question with the url pattern — NoisyB, May 19 '18 at 21:31
shouldn't your endpoint be `requests.post('http://127.0.0.1:8080/products/')` ? — Bernard 'Beta Berlin' Parah, May 19 '18 at 21:36
@BernardParah sorry that /products shouldn't be there. I went into the Rest Framework Permissions and changed it to AllowAny. Not sure if that's the best way to do it but it now works — NoisyB, May 19 '18 at 21:44
what is the settings for `DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES` for Rest Framework in your settings file? — Bernard 'Beta Berlin' Parah, May 19 '18 at 21:52
@BernardParah ive now changed it to AllowAny and it works, but this isn't the best way to do it — NoisyB, May 19 '18 at 21:54
@AndreyShipilov what do u recommend I should put my permissions as — NoisyB, May 19 '18 at 22:21
If you don't put anything it's `AllowAny`, from docs. If you need permissions — put needed ones. — Andrey Shipilov, May 19 '18 at 22:22

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 20 '18 at 01:19

1

ListAPIView is meant for only listing your products hence the POST requests are forbidden.

ListAPIView

Used for read-only endpoints to represent a collection of model instances.

taken from Django Rest Framework documentation

You should use ListCreateAPIView:

class ProductList(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
    """
    List all products or create a product.
    """
    queryset = Product.objects.all()
    serializer_class = ProductSerializer

answered May 20 '18 at 01:19

Joshua Chan

1,797
8
16

I'm still getting the 403. If I use this what permissions should I have for it. I don't really need any permissions in general on my site, so anything which would allow the post request to be sent to the API. – NoisyB May 20 '18 at 07:30
Where exactly are you sending the post request from? Are you still using your self-defined post function? Why are you using `queryset = [product.name for product in Product.objects.all()]` for a post request? If you want to create a product in your backend, simply use ListCreateAPIView and send the necessary data according to your serializer using the class above. – Joshua Chan May 20 '18 at 08:11
im sending the post request using python requests. I understand what you are saying about the queryset variable, but I'm still confused about how I would go about adding to the database then by using ListCreateAPIView – NoisyB May 20 '18 at 08:16
is the python request from another server? Why do you need an API if not. You need to send a post request with form data that contains the json representation of your ProductSerializer (should be a ModelSerializer else you need to manually create the object when receiving the data) – Joshua Chan May 20 '18 at 08:24
right now its all from the same computer, however once it's finished I intend to put it on a server which is why I need the API. I am sending it a post request using request.post(the URL, json={data here}) this command is just running through a python shell on my computer – NoisyB May 20 '18 at 08:30
your parameter seems to be wrong, should be data instead of json. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4476373/simple-url-get-post-function-in-python for examples on how to send json data with post – Joshua Chan May 20 '18 at 08:34
im using json and that seems to work fine. As some people have suggested in the comments I have added a csrf exempt and changed the permissions to AllowAny which gets rid of the 403 and he post request works fine. But apparently I shouldnt, or is bad practice to put AllowAny in the permissions – NoisyB May 20 '18 at 08:38

How to send POST request to Django REST API using python requests

1 Answers1

ListAPIView