Unable to retrieve an Array of objects posted to Django from jQuery

Question

My Javascript:

var postData = {
    customer: 'test', 
    order: 1, 
    boxes: [
        {
            "size":"2",
            "color":"1",
            "colorNumber":"1",
            "barCode":"1234567890",
            "barCodePic":"",
        },
        {
            "size":"3",
            "color":"1",
            "colorNumber":"2",
            "barCode":"0987654321",
            "barCodePic":"",
        }
    ]
}

jQuery.post("http://10.0.1.7:8001/bapi/order/", postData );

My Python:

print 'Customer:', request.POST.get('customer', None)                   
print 'Order:', request.POST.get('order', None)                         
print 'get - boxes:', request.POST.get('boxes', None)                    
print 'get - boxes[]:', request.POST.get('boxes[]', None)               
print 'getlist - boxes[]:', request.POST.getlist('boxes[]')             
print 'getlist - boxes:', request.POST.getlist('boxes')                                                                      
print request.POST

The output:

Customer: test
Order: 1
get - boxes: None
get - boxes[]: None
getlist - boxes[]: []
getlist - boxes: []
<QueryDict: {u'customer': [u'test'], u'boxes[1][barCode]': [u'0987654321'], u'boxes[0][size]': [u'2'], u'boxes[1][colorNumber]': [u'2'], u'boxes[1][size]': [u'3'], u'boxes[0][colorNumber]': [u'1'], u'boxes[1][color]': [u'1'], u'boxes[0][barCode]': [u'1234567890'], u'boxes[1][barCodePic]': [u''], u'boxes[0][barCodePic]': [u''], u'boxes[0][color]': [u'1'], u'order': [u'1']}>

Nothing I do gets me the list as I would expect. I'm hoping to get a python list containing dictionaries for each 'box' object.

I've been advised to use 'boxes[]' as the parameter name in javascript, so my post data would be:

var postData = {
    customer: 'test', 
    order: 1, 
    'boxes[]': [
        {
            "size":"2",
            "color":"1",
            "colorNumber":"1",
            "barCode":"1234567890",
            "barCodePic":"",
        },
        {
            "size":"3",
            "color":"1",
            "colorNumber":"2",
            "barCode":"0987654321",
            "barCodePic":"",
        }
    ]
}

When trying that, the output is:

Customer: test
Order: 1
get - boxes: None
get - boxes[]: [object Object]
getlist - boxes[]: [u'[object Object]', u'[object Object]']
getlist - boxes: []
POST BELOW
<QueryDict: {u'customer': [u'test'], u'boxes[]': [u'[object Object]', u'[object Object]'], u'order': [u'1']}>

You can see right in the QueryDict that's just a list of unicode strings containing '[object Object']. No object data is actually there.

This was previously marked as a duplicate in which the issue was solved by adding [] to the javascript parameter name, but as you can see in this revised post - that hasn't resolved the issue. This issue differs in that it is a list of objects. Not just a simple list. — Ben174
– Ben174, Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 22:36

michaelb · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-30 22:37:52Z

6

You need to encode the JavaScript objects first. Those cannot be passed directly via GET or POST parameters.

Try calling JSON.stringify() on the JavaScript objects before you POST it with jQuery (that is, the arbitrary data enclosed with { "size":"3", "color":"1" ... }). For example:

[

    JSON.stringify({
        "size":"2",
        "color":"1",
        "colorNumber":"1",
        "barCode":"1234567890",
        "barCodePic":"",
    }),
    JSON.stringify({
        "size":"3",
        "color":"1",
        "colorNumber":"2",
        "barCode":"0987654321",
        "barCodePic":"",
    })

]

Then within Python, use something like to decode it:

import json
box_0_string = request.POST.get('boxes[]')[0]
box_0_dict = json.loads(box_0_string)

To get the individual JSON objects.

answered Sep 30, 2014 at 22:37

michaelb

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1 Comment

Ben174 Over a year ago

Thank you! I thought I could post native objects around in a POST, but yea they do indeed need to be serialized. Thanks for the help!!

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