web2py convert Storage object to string

Question

I have some RESTful API calls in web2py which take in JSON file. I make the calls through the command line using curl like:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data @mydata.json https://mywebsite/doWork

In my web2py controller I have it setup to read the POST request. When I examine request.vars by returning it, it contains the full JSON data, but request.vars is of type: class 'gluon.storage.Storage'.

I need the data in string format in the controller. However, if I do str(request.vars), web2py appends a Storage tag in front of my data.

@request.restful()
def doWork():

    def POST(*args, **vars):
        return(request.vars)

    return locals()

Assuming the mydata.json file is something simple like:

{ "key": "value" }

The request to POST will return {"key": "value"} as a gluon.storage.Storage object.

If I change the line return(request.vars) to return(str(request.vars)) the output is now: < Storage {u'key': u'value'}>

How can I convert this request.vars to a string without it appending the Storage tag to the front, and changing the double quotes to single quotes?

Answer 1

If you want to convert vars back to JSON, you can use the Python json library or just use response.json:

    return response.json(vars)

Alternatively, you can add the .json extension to the request and simply return vars directly:

    return vars

with the following request:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data @mydata.json https://mywebsite/doWork.json

In that case, web2py will automatically convert the response to JSON.