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			894 lines
		
	
	
		
			33 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			ReStructuredText
		
	
	
	
| .. _quickstart:
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| 
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| Quickstart
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| ==========
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| 
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| Eager to get started?  This page gives a good introduction to Flask.  It
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| assumes you already have Flask installed.  If you do not, head over to the
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| :ref:`installation` section.
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| 
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| 
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| A Minimal Application
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| ---------------------
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| 
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| A minimal Flask application looks something like this::
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| 
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|     from flask import Flask
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|     app = Flask(__name__)
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| 
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|     @app.route('/')
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|     def hello_world():
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|         return 'Hello, World!'
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| 
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| So what did that code do?
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| 
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| 1. First we imported the :class:`~flask.Flask` class.  An instance of this
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|    class will be our WSGI application.
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| 2. Next we create an instance of this class. The first argument is the name of
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|    the application's module or package.  If you are using a single module (as
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|    in this example), you should use ``__name__`` because depending on if it's
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|    started as application or imported as module the name will be different
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|    (``'__main__'`` versus the actual import name). This is needed so that
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|    Flask knows where to look for templates, static files, and so on. For more
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|    information have a look at the :class:`~flask.Flask` documentation.
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| 3. We then use the :meth:`~flask.Flask.route` decorator to tell Flask what URL
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|    should trigger our function.
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| 4. The function is given a name which is also used to generate URLs for that
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|    particular function, and returns the message we want to display in the
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|    user's browser.
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| 
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| Just save it as :file:`hello.py` or something similar. Make sure to not call
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| your application :file:`flask.py` because this would conflict with Flask
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| itself.
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| 
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| To run the application you can either use the :command:`flask` command or
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| python's ``-m`` switch with Flask.  Before you can do that you need
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| to tell your terminal the application to work with by exporting the
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| ``FLASK_APP`` environment variable::
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| 
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|     $ export FLASK_APP=hello.py
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|     $ flask run
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|      * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/
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| 
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| If you are on Windows you need to use ``set`` instead of ``export``.
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| 
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| Alternatively you can use :command:`python -m flask`::
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| 
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|     $ export FLASK_APP=hello.py
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|     $ python -m flask run
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|      * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/
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| 
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| This launches a very simple builtin server, which is good enough for testing
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| but probably not what you want to use in production. For deployment options see
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| :ref:`deployment`.
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| 
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| Now head over to `http://127.0.0.1:5000/ <http://127.0.0.1:5000/>`_, and you
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| should see your hello world greeting.
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| 
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| .. _public-server:
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| 
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| .. admonition:: Externally Visible Server
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| 
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|    If you run the server you will notice that the server is only accessible
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|    from your own computer, not from any other in the network.  This is the
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|    default because in debugging mode a user of the application can execute
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|    arbitrary Python code on your computer.
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| 
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|    If you have the debugger disabled or trust the users on your network,
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|    you can make the server publicly available simply by adding
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|    ``--host=0.0.0.0`` to the command line::
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| 
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|        flask run --host=0.0.0.0
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| 
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|    This tells your operating system to listen on all public IPs.
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| 
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| 
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| What to do if the Server does not Start
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| ---------------------------------------
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| 
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| In case the :command:`python -m flask` fails or :command:`flask` does not exist,
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| there are multiple reasons this might be the case.  First of all you need
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| to look at the error message.
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| 
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| Old Version of Flask
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| ````````````````````
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| 
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| Versions of Flask older than 0.11 use to have different ways to start the
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| application.  In short, the :command:`flask` command did not exist, and
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| neither did :command:`python -m flask`.  In that case you have two options:
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| either upgrade to newer Flask versions or have a look at the :ref:`server`
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| docs to see the alternative method for running a server.
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| 
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| Invalid Import Name
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| ```````````````````
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| 
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| The ``-a`` argument to :command:`flask` is the name of the module to
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| import.  In case that module is incorrectly named you will get an import
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| error upon start (or if debug is enabled when you navigate to the
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| application).  It will tell you what it tried to import and why it failed.
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| 
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| The most common reason is a typo or because you did not actually create an
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| ``app`` object.
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| 
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| .. _debug-mode:
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| 
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| Debug Mode
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| ----------
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| 
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| (Want to just log errors and stack traces? See :ref:`application-errors`)
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| 
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| The :command:`flask` script is nice to start a local development server, but
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| you would have to restart it manually after each change to your code.
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| That is not very nice and Flask can do better.  If you enable debug
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| support the server will reload itself on code changes, and it will also
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| provide you with a helpful debugger if things go wrong.
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| 
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| To enable debug mode you can export the ``FLASK_DEBUG`` environment variable
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| before running the server::
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| 
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|     $ export FLASK_DEBUG=1
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|     $ flask run
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| 
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| (On Windows you need to use ``set`` instead of ``export``).
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| 
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| This does the following things:
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| 
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| 1.  it activates the debugger
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| 2.  it activates the automatic reloader
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| 3.  it enables the debug mode on the Flask application.
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| 
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| There are more parameters that are explained in the :ref:`server` docs.
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| 
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| .. admonition:: Attention
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| 
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|    Even though the interactive debugger does not work in forking environments
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|    (which makes it nearly impossible to use on production servers), it still
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|    allows the execution of arbitrary code. This makes it a major security risk
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|    and therefore it **must never be used on production machines**.
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| 
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| Screenshot of the debugger in action:
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| 
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| .. image:: _static/debugger.png
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|    :align: center
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|    :class: screenshot
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|    :alt: screenshot of debugger in action
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| 
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| Have another debugger in mind? See :ref:`working-with-debuggers`.
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| 
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| 
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| Routing
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| -------
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| 
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| Modern web applications have beautiful URLs.  This helps people remember
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| the URLs, which is especially handy for applications that are used from
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| mobile devices with slower network connections.  If the user can directly
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| go to the desired page without having to hit the index page it is more
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| likely they will like the page and come back next time.
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| 
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| As you have seen above, the :meth:`~flask.Flask.route` decorator is used to
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| bind a function to a URL.  Here are some basic examples::
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| 
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|     @app.route('/')
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|     def index():
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|         return 'Index Page'
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| 
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|     @app.route('/hello')
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|     def hello():
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|         return 'Hello, World'
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| 
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| But there is more to it!  You can make certain parts of the URL dynamic and
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| attach multiple rules to a function.
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| 
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| Variable Rules
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| ``````````````
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| 
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| To add variable parts to a URL you can mark these special sections as
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| ``<variable_name>``.  Such a part is then passed as a keyword argument to your
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| function.  Optionally a converter can be used by specifying a rule with
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| ``<converter:variable_name>``.  Here are some nice examples::
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| 
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|     @app.route('/user/<username>')
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|     def show_user_profile(username):
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|         # show the user profile for that user
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|         return 'User %s' % username
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| 
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|     @app.route('/post/<int:post_id>')
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|     def show_post(post_id):
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|         # show the post with the given id, the id is an integer
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|         return 'Post %d' % post_id
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| 
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| The following converters exist:
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| 
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| =========== ===============================================
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| `string`    accepts any text without a slash (the default)
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| `int`       accepts integers
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| `float`     like ``int`` but for floating point values
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| `path`      like the default but also accepts slashes
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| `any`       matches one of the items provided
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| `uuid`      accepts UUID strings
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| =========== ===============================================
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| 
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| .. admonition:: Unique URLs / Redirection Behavior
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| 
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|    Flask's URL rules are based on Werkzeug's routing module.  The idea
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|    behind that module is to ensure beautiful and unique URLs based on
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|    precedents laid down by Apache and earlier HTTP servers.
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| 
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|    Take these two rules::
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| 
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|         @app.route('/projects/')
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|         def projects():
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|             return 'The project page'
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| 
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|         @app.route('/about')
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|         def about():
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|             return 'The about page'
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| 
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|    Though they look rather similar, they differ in their use of the trailing
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|    slash in the URL *definition*.  In the first case, the canonical URL for the
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|    ``projects`` endpoint has a trailing slash.  In that sense, it is similar to
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|    a folder on a filesystem.  Accessing it without a trailing slash will cause
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|    Flask to redirect to the canonical URL with the trailing slash.
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| 
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|    In the second case, however, the URL is defined without a trailing slash,
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|    rather like the pathname of a file on UNIX-like systems. Accessing the URL
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|    with a trailing slash will produce a 404 "Not Found" error.
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| 
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|    This behavior allows relative URLs to continue working even if the trailing
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|    slash is omitted, consistent with how Apache and other servers work.  Also,
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|    the URLs will stay unique, which helps search engines avoid indexing the
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|    same page twice.
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| 
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| 
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| .. _url-building:
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| 
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| URL Building
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| ````````````
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| 
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| If it can match URLs, can Flask also generate them?  Of course it can.  To
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| build a URL to a specific function you can use the :func:`~flask.url_for`
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| function.  It accepts the name of the function as first argument and a number
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| of keyword arguments, each corresponding to the variable part of the URL rule.
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| Unknown variable parts are appended to the URL as query parameters.  Here are
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| some examples::
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| 
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|     >>> from flask import Flask, url_for
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|     >>> app = Flask(__name__)
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|     >>> @app.route('/')
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|     ... def index(): pass
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|     ...
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|     >>> @app.route('/login')
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|     ... def login(): pass
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|     ...
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|     >>> @app.route('/user/<username>')
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|     ... def profile(username): pass
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|     ...
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|     >>> with app.test_request_context():
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|     ...  print url_for('index')
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|     ...  print url_for('login')
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|     ...  print url_for('login', next='/')
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|     ...  print url_for('profile', username='John Doe')
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|     ...
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|     /
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|     /login
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|     /login?next=/
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|     /user/John%20Doe
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| 
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| (This also uses the :meth:`~flask.Flask.test_request_context` method, explained
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| below.  It tells Flask to behave as though it is handling a request, even
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| though we are interacting with it through a Python shell.  Have a look at the
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| explanation below. :ref:`context-locals`).
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| 
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| Why would you want to build URLs using the URL reversing function
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| :func:`~flask.url_for` instead of hard-coding them into your templates?
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| There are three good reasons for this:
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| 
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| 1. Reversing is often more descriptive than hard-coding the URLs.  More
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|    importantly, it allows you to change URLs in one go, without having to
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|    remember to change URLs all over the place.
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| 2. URL building will handle escaping of special characters and Unicode
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|    data transparently for you, so you don't have to deal with them.
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| 3. If your application is placed outside the URL root - say, in
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|    ``/myapplication`` instead of ``/`` - :func:`~flask.url_for` will handle
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|    that properly for you.
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| 
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| 
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| HTTP Methods
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| ````````````
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| 
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| HTTP (the protocol web applications are speaking) knows different methods for
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| accessing URLs.  By default, a route only answers to ``GET`` requests, but that
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| can be changed by providing the ``methods`` argument to the
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| :meth:`~flask.Flask.route` decorator.  Here are some examples::
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| 
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|     from flask import request
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| 
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|     @app.route('/login', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
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|     def login():
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|         if request.method == 'POST':
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|             do_the_login()
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|         else:
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|             show_the_login_form()
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| 
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| If ``GET`` is present, ``HEAD`` will be added automatically for you.  You
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| don't have to deal with that.  It will also make sure that ``HEAD`` requests
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| are handled as the `HTTP RFC`_ (the document describing the HTTP
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| protocol) demands, so you can completely ignore that part of the HTTP
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| specification.  Likewise, as of Flask 0.6, ``OPTIONS`` is implemented for you
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| automatically as well.
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| 
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| You have no idea what an HTTP method is?  Worry not, here is a quick
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| introduction to HTTP methods and why they matter:
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| 
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| The HTTP method (also often called "the verb") tells the server what the
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| client wants to *do* with the requested page.  The following methods are
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| very common:
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| 
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| ``GET``
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|     The browser tells the server to just *get* the information stored on
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|     that page and send it.  This is probably the most common method.
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| 
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| ``HEAD``
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|     The browser tells the server to get the information, but it is only
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|     interested in the *headers*, not the content of the page.  An
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|     application is supposed to handle that as if a ``GET`` request was
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|     received but to not deliver the actual content.  In Flask you don't
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|     have to deal with that at all, the underlying Werkzeug library handles
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|     that for you.
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| 
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| ``POST``
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|     The browser tells the server that it wants to *post* some new
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|     information to that URL and that the server must ensure the data is
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|     stored and only stored once.  This is how HTML forms usually
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|     transmit data to the server.
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| 
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| ``PUT``
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|     Similar to ``POST`` but the server might trigger the store procedure
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|     multiple times by overwriting the old values more than once.  Now you
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|     might be asking why this is useful, but there are some good reasons
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|     to do it this way.  Consider that the connection is lost during
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|     transmission: in this situation a system between the browser and the
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|     server might receive the request safely a second time without breaking
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|     things.  With ``POST`` that would not be possible because it must only
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|     be triggered once.
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| 
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| ``DELETE``
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|     Remove the information at the given location.
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| 
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| ``OPTIONS``
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|     Provides a quick way for a client to figure out which methods are
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|     supported by this URL.  Starting with Flask 0.6, this is implemented
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|     for you automatically.
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| 
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| Now the interesting part is that in HTML4 and XHTML1, the only methods a
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| form can submit to the server are ``GET`` and ``POST``.  But with JavaScript
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| and future HTML standards you can use the other methods as well.  Furthermore
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| HTTP has become quite popular lately and browsers are no longer the only
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| clients that are using HTTP. For instance, many revision control systems
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| use it.
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| 
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| .. _HTTP RFC: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2068.txt
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| 
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| Static Files
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| ------------
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| 
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| Dynamic web applications also need static files.  That's usually where
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| the CSS and JavaScript files are coming from.  Ideally your web server is
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| configured to serve them for you, but during development Flask can do that
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| as well.  Just create a folder called :file:`static` in your package or next to
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| your module and it will be available at ``/static`` on the application.
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| 
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| To generate URLs for static files, use the special ``'static'`` endpoint name::
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| 
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|     url_for('static', filename='style.css')
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| 
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| The file has to be stored on the filesystem as :file:`static/style.css`.
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| 
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| Rendering Templates
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| -------------------
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| 
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| Generating HTML from within Python is not fun, and actually pretty
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| cumbersome because you have to do the HTML escaping on your own to keep
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| the application secure.  Because of that Flask configures the `Jinja2
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| <http://jinja.pocoo.org/>`_ template engine for you automatically.
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| 
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| To render a template you can use the :func:`~flask.render_template`
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| method.  All you have to do is provide the name of the template and the
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| variables you want to pass to the template engine as keyword arguments.
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| Here's a simple example of how to render a template::
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| 
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|     from flask import render_template
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| 
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|     @app.route('/hello/')
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|     @app.route('/hello/<name>')
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|     def hello(name=None):
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|         return render_template('hello.html', name=name)
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| 
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| Flask will look for templates in the :file:`templates` folder.  So if your
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| application is a module, this folder is next to that module, if it's a
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| package it's actually inside your package:
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| 
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| **Case 1**: a module::
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| 
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|     /application.py
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|     /templates
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|         /hello.html
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| 
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| **Case 2**: a package::
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| 
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|     /application
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|         /__init__.py
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|         /templates
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|             /hello.html
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| 
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| For templates you can use the full power of Jinja2 templates.  Head over
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| to the official `Jinja2 Template Documentation
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| <http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/templates>`_ for more information.
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| 
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| Here is an example template:
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| 
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| .. sourcecode:: html+jinja
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| 
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|     <!doctype html>
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|     <title>Hello from Flask</title>
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|     {% if name %}
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|       <h1>Hello {{ name }}!</h1>
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|     {% else %}
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|       <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
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|     {% endif %}
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| 
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| Inside templates you also have access to the :class:`~flask.request`,
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| :class:`~flask.session` and :class:`~flask.g` [#]_ objects
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| as well as the :func:`~flask.get_flashed_messages` function.
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| 
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| Templates are especially useful if inheritance is used.  If you want to
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| know how that works, head over to the :ref:`template-inheritance` pattern
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| documentation.  Basically template inheritance makes it possible to keep
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| certain elements on each page (like header, navigation and footer).
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| 
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| Automatic escaping is enabled, so if ``name`` contains HTML it will be escaped
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| automatically.  If you can trust a variable and you know that it will be
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| safe HTML (for example because it came from a module that converts wiki
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| markup to HTML) you can mark it as safe by using the
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| :class:`~jinja2.Markup` class or by using the ``|safe`` filter in the
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| template.  Head over to the Jinja 2 documentation for more examples.
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| 
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| Here is a basic introduction to how the :class:`~jinja2.Markup` class works::
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| 
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|     >>> from flask import Markup
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|     >>> Markup('<strong>Hello %s!</strong>') % '<blink>hacker</blink>'
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|     Markup(u'<strong>Hello <blink>hacker</blink>!</strong>')
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|     >>> Markup.escape('<blink>hacker</blink>')
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|     Markup(u'<blink>hacker</blink>')
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|     >>> Markup('<em>Marked up</em> » HTML').striptags()
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|     u'Marked up \xbb HTML'
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| 
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| .. versionchanged:: 0.5
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| 
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|    Autoescaping is no longer enabled for all templates.  The following
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|    extensions for templates trigger autoescaping: ``.html``, ``.htm``,
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|    ``.xml``, ``.xhtml``.  Templates loaded from a string will have
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|    autoescaping disabled.
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| 
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| .. [#] Unsure what that :class:`~flask.g` object is? It's something in which
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|    you can store information for your own needs, check the documentation of
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|    that object (:class:`~flask.g`) and the :ref:`sqlite3` for more
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|    information.
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| 
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| 
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| Accessing Request Data
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| ----------------------
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| 
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| For web applications it's crucial to react to the data a client sends to
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| the server.  In Flask this information is provided by the global
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| :class:`~flask.request` object.  If you have some experience with Python
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| you might be wondering how that object can be global and how Flask
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| manages to still be threadsafe.  The answer is context locals:
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| 
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| 
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| .. _context-locals:
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| 
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| Context Locals
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| ``````````````
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| 
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| .. admonition:: Insider Information
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| 
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|    If you want to understand how that works and how you can implement
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|    tests with context locals, read this section, otherwise just skip it.
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| 
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| Certain objects in Flask are global objects, but not of the usual kind.
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| These objects are actually proxies to objects that are local to a specific
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| context.  What a mouthful.  But that is actually quite easy to understand.
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| 
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| Imagine the context being the handling thread.  A request comes in and the
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| web server decides to spawn a new thread (or something else, the
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| underlying object is capable of dealing with concurrency systems other
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| than threads).  When Flask starts its internal request handling it
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| figures out that the current thread is the active context and binds the
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| current application and the WSGI environments to that context (thread).
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| It does that in an intelligent way so that one application can invoke another
 | |
| application without breaking.
 | |
| 
 | |
| So what does this mean to you?  Basically you can completely ignore that
 | |
| this is the case unless you are doing something like unit testing.  You
 | |
| will notice that code which depends on a request object will suddenly break
 | |
| because there is no request object.  The solution is creating a request
 | |
| object yourself and binding it to the context.  The easiest solution for
 | |
| unit testing is to use the :meth:`~flask.Flask.test_request_context`
 | |
| context manager.  In combination with the ``with`` statement it will bind a
 | |
| test request so that you can interact with it.  Here is an example::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import request
 | |
| 
 | |
|     with app.test_request_context('/hello', method='POST'):
 | |
|         # now you can do something with the request until the
 | |
|         # end of the with block, such as basic assertions:
 | |
|         assert request.path == '/hello'
 | |
|         assert request.method == 'POST'
 | |
| 
 | |
| The other possibility is passing a whole WSGI environment to the
 | |
| :meth:`~flask.Flask.request_context` method::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import request
 | |
| 
 | |
|     with app.request_context(environ):
 | |
|         assert request.method == 'POST'
 | |
| 
 | |
| The Request Object
 | |
| ``````````````````
 | |
| 
 | |
| The request object is documented in the API section and we will not cover
 | |
| it here in detail (see :class:`~flask.request`). Here is a broad overview of
 | |
| some of the most common operations.  First of all you have to import it from
 | |
| the ``flask`` module::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import request
 | |
| 
 | |
| The current request method is available by using the
 | |
| :attr:`~flask.request.method` attribute.  To access form data (data
 | |
| transmitted in a ``POST`` or ``PUT`` request) you can use the
 | |
| :attr:`~flask.request.form` attribute.  Here is a full example of the two
 | |
| attributes mentioned above::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/login', methods=['POST', 'GET'])
 | |
|     def login():
 | |
|         error = None
 | |
|         if request.method == 'POST':
 | |
|             if valid_login(request.form['username'],
 | |
|                            request.form['password']):
 | |
|                 return log_the_user_in(request.form['username'])
 | |
|             else:
 | |
|                 error = 'Invalid username/password'
 | |
|         # the code below is executed if the request method
 | |
|         # was GET or the credentials were invalid
 | |
|         return render_template('login.html', error=error)
 | |
| 
 | |
| What happens if the key does not exist in the ``form`` attribute?  In that
 | |
| case a special :exc:`KeyError` is raised.  You can catch it like a
 | |
| standard :exc:`KeyError` but if you don't do that, a HTTP 400 Bad Request
 | |
| error page is shown instead.  So for many situations you don't have to
 | |
| deal with that problem.
 | |
| 
 | |
| To access parameters submitted in the URL (``?key=value``) you can use the
 | |
| :attr:`~flask.request.args` attribute::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     searchword = request.args.get('key', '')
 | |
| 
 | |
| We recommend accessing URL parameters with `get` or by catching the
 | |
| :exc:`KeyError` because users might change the URL and presenting them a 400
 | |
| bad request page in that case is not user friendly.
 | |
| 
 | |
| For a full list of methods and attributes of the request object, head over
 | |
| to the :class:`~flask.request` documentation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| File Uploads
 | |
| ````````````
 | |
| 
 | |
| You can handle uploaded files with Flask easily.  Just make sure not to
 | |
| forget to set the ``enctype="multipart/form-data"`` attribute on your HTML
 | |
| form, otherwise the browser will not transmit your files at all.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Uploaded files are stored in memory or at a temporary location on the
 | |
| filesystem.  You can access those files by looking at the
 | |
| :attr:`~flask.request.files` attribute on the request object.  Each
 | |
| uploaded file is stored in that dictionary.  It behaves just like a
 | |
| standard Python :class:`file` object, but it also has a
 | |
| :meth:`~werkzeug.datastructures.FileStorage.save` method that allows you to store that
 | |
| file on the filesystem of the server.  Here is a simple example showing how
 | |
| that works::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import request
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/upload', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
 | |
|     def upload_file():
 | |
|         if request.method == 'POST':
 | |
|             f = request.files['the_file']
 | |
|             f.save('/var/www/uploads/uploaded_file.txt')
 | |
|         ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| If you want to know how the file was named on the client before it was
 | |
| uploaded to your application, you can access the
 | |
| :attr:`~werkzeug.datastructures.FileStorage.filename` attribute.  However please keep in
 | |
| mind that this value can be forged so never ever trust that value.  If you
 | |
| want to use the filename of the client to store the file on the server,
 | |
| pass it through the :func:`~werkzeug.utils.secure_filename` function that
 | |
| Werkzeug provides for you::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import request
 | |
|     from werkzeug.utils import secure_filename
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/upload', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
 | |
|     def upload_file():
 | |
|         if request.method == 'POST':
 | |
|             f = request.files['the_file']
 | |
|             f.save('/var/www/uploads/' + secure_filename(f.filename))
 | |
|         ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| For some better examples, checkout the :ref:`uploading-files` pattern.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Cookies
 | |
| ```````
 | |
| 
 | |
| To access cookies you can use the :attr:`~flask.Request.cookies`
 | |
| attribute.  To set cookies you can use the
 | |
| :attr:`~flask.Response.set_cookie` method of response objects.  The
 | |
| :attr:`~flask.Request.cookies` attribute of request objects is a
 | |
| dictionary with all the cookies the client transmits.  If you want to use
 | |
| sessions, do not use the cookies directly but instead use the
 | |
| :ref:`sessions` in Flask that add some security on top of cookies for you.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Reading cookies::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import request
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/')
 | |
|     def index():
 | |
|         username = request.cookies.get('username')
 | |
|         # use cookies.get(key) instead of cookies[key] to not get a
 | |
|         # KeyError if the cookie is missing.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Storing cookies::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import make_response
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/')
 | |
|     def index():
 | |
|         resp = make_response(render_template(...))
 | |
|         resp.set_cookie('username', 'the username')
 | |
|         return resp
 | |
| 
 | |
| Note that cookies are set on response objects.  Since you normally
 | |
| just return strings from the view functions Flask will convert them into
 | |
| response objects for you.  If you explicitly want to do that you can use
 | |
| the :meth:`~flask.make_response` function and then modify it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Sometimes you might want to set a cookie at a point where the response
 | |
| object does not exist yet.  This is possible by utilizing the
 | |
| :ref:`deferred-callbacks` pattern.
 | |
| 
 | |
| For this also see :ref:`about-responses`.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Redirects and Errors
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| To redirect a user to another endpoint, use the :func:`~flask.redirect`
 | |
| function; to abort a request early with an error code, use the
 | |
| :func:`~flask.abort` function::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import abort, redirect, url_for
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/')
 | |
|     def index():
 | |
|         return redirect(url_for('login'))
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/login')
 | |
|     def login():
 | |
|         abort(401)
 | |
|         this_is_never_executed()
 | |
| 
 | |
| This is a rather pointless example because a user will be redirected from
 | |
| the index to a page they cannot access (401 means access denied) but it
 | |
| shows how that works.
 | |
| 
 | |
| By default a black and white error page is shown for each error code.  If
 | |
| you want to customize the error page, you can use the
 | |
| :meth:`~flask.Flask.errorhandler` decorator::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import render_template
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.errorhandler(404)
 | |
|     def page_not_found(error):
 | |
|         return render_template('page_not_found.html'), 404
 | |
| 
 | |
| Note the ``404`` after the :func:`~flask.render_template` call.  This
 | |
| tells Flask that the status code of that page should be 404 which means
 | |
| not found.  By default 200 is assumed which translates to: all went well.
 | |
| 
 | |
| See :ref:`error-handlers` for more details.
 | |
| 
 | |
| .. _about-responses:
 | |
| 
 | |
| About Responses
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The return value from a view function is automatically converted into a
 | |
| response object for you.  If the return value is a string it's converted
 | |
| into a response object with the string as response body, a ``200 OK``
 | |
| status code and a :mimetype:`text/html` mimetype.  The logic that Flask applies to
 | |
| converting return values into response objects is as follows:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 1.  If a response object of the correct type is returned it's directly
 | |
|     returned from the view.
 | |
| 2.  If it's a string, a response object is created with that data and the
 | |
|     default parameters.
 | |
| 3.  If a tuple is returned the items in the tuple can provide extra
 | |
|     information.  Such tuples have to be in the form ``(response, status,
 | |
|     headers)`` or ``(response, headers)`` where at least one item has
 | |
|     to be in the tuple.  The ``status`` value will override the status code
 | |
|     and ``headers`` can be a list or dictionary of additional header values.
 | |
| 4.  If none of that works, Flask will assume the return value is a
 | |
|     valid WSGI application and convert that into a response object.
 | |
| 
 | |
| If you want to get hold of the resulting response object inside the view
 | |
| you can use the :func:`~flask.make_response` function.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Imagine you have a view like this::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.errorhandler(404)
 | |
|     def not_found(error):
 | |
|         return render_template('error.html'), 404
 | |
| 
 | |
| You just need to wrap the return expression with
 | |
| :func:`~flask.make_response` and get the response object to modify it, then
 | |
| return it::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.errorhandler(404)
 | |
|     def not_found(error):
 | |
|         resp = make_response(render_template('error.html'), 404)
 | |
|         resp.headers['X-Something'] = 'A value'
 | |
|         return resp
 | |
| 
 | |
| .. _sessions:
 | |
| 
 | |
| Sessions
 | |
| --------
 | |
| 
 | |
| In addition to the request object there is also a second object called
 | |
| :class:`~flask.session` which allows you to store information specific to a
 | |
| user from one request to the next.  This is implemented on top of cookies
 | |
| for you and signs the cookies cryptographically.  What this means is that
 | |
| the user could look at the contents of your cookie but not modify it,
 | |
| unless they know the secret key used for signing.
 | |
| 
 | |
| In order to use sessions you have to set a secret key.  Here is how
 | |
| sessions work::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from flask import Flask, session, redirect, url_for, escape, request
 | |
| 
 | |
|     app = Flask(__name__)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/')
 | |
|     def index():
 | |
|         if 'username' in session:
 | |
|             return 'Logged in as %s' % escape(session['username'])
 | |
|         return 'You are not logged in'
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/login', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
 | |
|     def login():
 | |
|         if request.method == 'POST':
 | |
|             session['username'] = request.form['username']
 | |
|             return redirect(url_for('index'))
 | |
|         return '''
 | |
|             <form method="post">
 | |
|                 <p><input type=text name=username>
 | |
|                 <p><input type=submit value=Login>
 | |
|             </form>
 | |
|         '''
 | |
| 
 | |
|     @app.route('/logout')
 | |
|     def logout():
 | |
|         # remove the username from the session if it's there
 | |
|         session.pop('username', None)
 | |
|         return redirect(url_for('index'))
 | |
| 
 | |
|     # set the secret key.  keep this really secret:
 | |
|     app.secret_key = 'A0Zr98j/3yX R~XHH!jmN]LWX/,?RT'
 | |
| 
 | |
| The :func:`~flask.escape` mentioned here does escaping for you if you are
 | |
| not using the template engine (as in this example).
 | |
| 
 | |
| .. admonition:: How to generate good secret keys
 | |
| 
 | |
|    The problem with random is that it's hard to judge what is truly random.  And
 | |
|    a secret key should be as random as possible.  Your operating system
 | |
|    has ways to generate pretty random stuff based on a cryptographic
 | |
|    random generator which can be used to get such a key::
 | |
| 
 | |
|        >>> import os
 | |
|        >>> os.urandom(24)
 | |
|        '\xfd{H\xe5<\x95\xf9\xe3\x96.5\xd1\x01O<!\xd5\xa2\xa0\x9fR"\xa1\xa8'
 | |
| 
 | |
|        Just take that thing and copy/paste it into your code and you're done.
 | |
| 
 | |
| A note on cookie-based sessions: Flask will take the values you put into the
 | |
| session object and serialize them into a cookie.  If you are finding some
 | |
| values do not persist across requests, cookies are indeed enabled, and you are
 | |
| not getting a clear error message, check the size of the cookie in your page
 | |
| responses compared to the size supported by web browsers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Besides the default client-side based sessions, if you want to handle
 | |
| sessions on the server-side instead, there are several
 | |
| Flask extensions that support this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Message Flashing
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Good applications and user interfaces are all about feedback.  If the user
 | |
| does not get enough feedback they will probably end up hating the
 | |
| application.  Flask provides a really simple way to give feedback to a
 | |
| user with the flashing system.  The flashing system basically makes it
 | |
| possible to record a message at the end of a request and access it on the next
 | |
| (and only the next) request.  This is usually combined with a layout
 | |
| template to expose the message.
 | |
| 
 | |
| To flash a message use the :func:`~flask.flash` method, to get hold of the
 | |
| messages you can use :func:`~flask.get_flashed_messages` which is also
 | |
| available in the templates.  Check out the :ref:`message-flashing-pattern`
 | |
| for a full example.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Logging
 | |
| -------
 | |
| 
 | |
| .. versionadded:: 0.3
 | |
| 
 | |
| Sometimes you might be in a situation where you deal with data that
 | |
| should be correct, but actually is not.  For example you may have some client-side
 | |
| code that sends an HTTP request to the server but it's obviously
 | |
| malformed.  This might be caused by a user tampering with the data, or the
 | |
| client code failing.  Most of the time it's okay to reply with ``400 Bad
 | |
| Request`` in that situation, but sometimes that won't do and the code has
 | |
| to continue working.
 | |
| 
 | |
| You may still want to log that something fishy happened.  This is where
 | |
| loggers come in handy.  As of Flask 0.3 a logger is preconfigured for you
 | |
| to use.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Here are some example log calls::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     app.logger.debug('A value for debugging')
 | |
|     app.logger.warning('A warning occurred (%d apples)', 42)
 | |
|     app.logger.error('An error occurred')
 | |
| 
 | |
| The attached :attr:`~flask.Flask.logger` is a standard logging
 | |
| :class:`~logging.Logger`, so head over to the official `logging
 | |
| documentation <https://docs.python.org/library/logging.html>`_ for more
 | |
| information.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Read more on :ref:`application-errors`.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Hooking in WSGI Middlewares
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| If you want to add a WSGI middleware to your application you can wrap the
 | |
| internal WSGI application.  For example if you want to use one of the
 | |
| middlewares from the Werkzeug package to work around bugs in lighttpd, you
 | |
| can do it like this::
 | |
| 
 | |
|     from werkzeug.contrib.fixers import LighttpdCGIRootFix
 | |
|     app.wsgi_app = LighttpdCGIRootFix(app.wsgi_app)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Using Flask Extensions
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Extensions are packages that help you accomplish common tasks. For
 | |
| example, Flask-SQLAlchemy provides SQLAlchemy support that makes it simple
 | |
| and easy to use with Flask.
 | |
| 
 | |
| For more on Flask extensions, have a look at :ref:`extensions`.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Deploying to a Web Server
 | |
| -------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Ready to deploy your new Flask app? Go to :ref:`deployment`.
 |