How Can I get the timestamp a request was sent from the client?

Question

I want to calculate the delay between a client sending a request to my flask api and my flask api receiving the request. Right now I'm trying this:

@current_app.before_request
def before_request():
    print(request.date)

But I am printing None

Flask's documentation states this will work here: http://werkzeug.pocoo.org/docs/0.14/wrappers/#werkzeug.wrappers.CommonRequestDescriptorsMixin.date

Answer 1

Those flask docs are referencing the Date header. It will print None unless the Date header is specified in the request.

The MDN Docs for header show you the format of the header. Send a request with that header and you'll have the information you need.

If you can't control the client sending your requests, I don't think there is a way to achieve what you're looking for.