Set headers for AJAX request to Django

Question

I want to test some AJAX requests to my Django site, but the server doesn't think the request from my test tool is an AJAX request. What HTTP header do I need to set?

The server code has a test like this:

# in myapp/ajax.py
def my_request(request, some_id):
    if request.is_ajax():
        return json.dumps([some_id, 'processed for AJAX'])

    # some other processing, or an error

I'm using Postman to send my AJAX request, and I've learned to set the Accept header to application/json , but what header do I set to show that it's an AJAX request?

In the Django code, I found the test method:

def is_ajax(self):
    return self.META.get('HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH') == 'XMLHttpRequest'

When I set the HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH header to XMLHttpRequest , the test still fails.

Answer 1

When I turned on the Chrome developer tools, I saw that a regular AJAX request includes the header X-Requested-With set to XMLHttpRequest . Adding that header in the Postman request makes it work. It's just a slightly different name.

If you are making AJAX requests that modify data, you'll want to switch to making POST requests. That brings Django's cross-site request forgery tools into play, so you'll need to copy your CSRF token from some other form's hidden field, and then paste it in the X-CSRFToken header when you test your AJAX requests.

Answer 2

Anytime I'm sending Ajax data via Django I always put this at the top.

// django ajax request info
function getCookie(name) {
    var cookieValue = null;
    if (document.cookie && document.cookie != '') {
        var cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
        for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
            var cookie = jQuery.trim(cookies[i]);
            // Does this cookie string begin with the name we want?
            if (cookie.substring(0, name.length + 1) == (name + '=')) {
                cookieValue = decodeURIComponent(cookie.substring(name.length + 1));
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    return cookieValue;
}
var csrftoken = getCookie('csrftoken');

function csrfSafeMethod(method) {
    // these HTTP methods do not require CSRF protection
    return (/^(GET|HEAD|OPTIONS|TRACE)$/.test(method));
}
function sameOrigin(url) {
    // test that a given url is a same-origin URL
    // url could be relative or scheme relative or absolute
    var host = document.location.host; // host + port
    var protocol = document.location.protocol;
    var sr_origin = '//' + host;
    var origin = protocol + sr_origin;
    // Allow absolute or scheme relative URLs to same origin
    return (url == origin || url.slice(0, origin.length + 1) == origin + '/') ||
        (url == sr_origin || url.slice(0, sr_origin.length + 1) == sr_origin + '/') ||
        // or any other URL that isn't scheme relative or absolute i.e relative.
        !(/^(\/\/|http:|https:).*/.test(url));
}

$.ajaxSetup({
    beforeSend: function(xhr, settings) {
        if (!csrfSafeMethod(settings.type) && sameOrigin(settings.url)) {
            // Send the token to same-origin, relative URLs only.
            // Send the token only if the method warrants CSRF protection
            // Using the CSRFToken value acquired earlier
            xhr.setRequestHeader("X-CSRFToken", csrftoken);
        }
    }
});