Werkzeug

HTTP Utilties

You can import all these objects directly from werkzeug.

Date Functions

The following functions simplify working with times in an HTTP context. Werkzeug uses offset-naive datetime objects internally that store the time in UTC. If you’re working with timezones in your application make sure to replace the tzinfo attribute with a UTC timezone information before processing the values.

werkzeug.cookie_date(expires=None)

Formats the time to ensure compatibility with Netscape’s cookie standard.

Accepts a floating point number expressed in seconds since the epoch in, a datetime object or a timetuple. All times in UTC. The parse_date() function can be used to parse such a date.

Outputs a string in the format Wdy, DD-Mon-YYYY HH:MM:SS GMT.

Parameters:
  • expires – If provided that date is used, otherwise the current.
werkzeug.http_date(timestamp=None)

Formats the time to match the RFC1123 date format.

Accepts a floating point number expressed in seconds since the epoch in, a datetime object or a timetuple. All times in UTC. The parse_date() function can be used to parse such a date.

Outputs a string in the format Wdy, DD Mon YYYY HH:MM:SS GMT.

Parameters:
  • timestamp – If provided that date is used, otherwise the current.
werkzeug.parse_date(value)

Parse one of the following date formats into a datetime object:

Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT  ; RFC 822, updated by RFC 1123
Sunday, 06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT ; RFC 850, obsoleted by RFC 1036
Sun Nov  6 08:49:37 1994       ; ANSI C's asctime() format

If parsing fails the return value is None.

Parameters:
  • value – a string with a supported date format.
Returns:

a datetime.datetime object.

Form Data Parsing

Werkzeug provides the form parsing functions separately from the request object so that you can access form data from a plain WSGI environment.

The following formats are supported by the form data parser currently:

  • application/x-www-form-urlencoded
  • multipart/form-data

Nested multipart is currently not supported (Werkzeug 0.6) albeit unused by any of the modern webbrowsers.

Usage example:

>>> from cStringIO import StringIO
>>> data = '--foo\r\nContent-Disposition: form-data; name="test"\r\n' \
... '\r\nHello World!\r\n--foo--'
>>> environ = {'wsgi.input': StringIO(data), 'CONTENT_LENGTH': str(len(data)),
...            'CONTENT_TYPE': 'multipart/form-data; boundary=foo',
...            'REQUEST_METHOD': 'POST'}
>>> stream, form, files = parse_form_data(environ)
>>> stream.read()
''
>>> form['test']
u'Hello World!'
>>> not files
True

Normally the WSGI environment is provided by the WSGI gateway with the incoming data as part of it. If you want to generate such fake-WSGI environments for unittesting you might want to use the create_environ() function or the EnvironBuilder instead.

werkzeug.parse_form_data(environ, stream_factory=None, charset='utf-8', errors='ignore', max_form_memory_size=None, max_content_length=None, cls=None, silent=True)

Parse the form data in the environ and return it as tuple in the form (stream, form, files). You should only call this method if the transport method is POST or PUT.

If the mimetype of the data transmitted is multipart/form-data the files multidict will be filled with FileStorage objects. If the mimetype is unknown the input stream is wrapped and returned as first argument, else the stream is empty.

This function does not raise exceptions, even if the input data is malformed.

Have a look at Dealing with Request Data for more details.

New in version 0.5: The max_form_memory_size, max_content_length and cls parameters were added.

New in version 0.5.1: The optional silent flag was added.

Parameters:
  • environ – the WSGI environment to be used for parsing.
  • stream_factory – An optional callable that returns a new read and writeable file descriptor. This callable works the same as _get_file_stream().
  • charset – The character set for URL and url encoded form data.
  • errors – The encoding error behavior.
  • max_form_memory_size – the maximum number of bytes to be accepted for in-memory stored form data. If the data exceeds the value specified an RequestURITooLarge exception is raised.
  • max_content_length – If this is provided and the transmitted data is longer than this value an RequestEntityTooLarge exception is raised.
  • cls – an optional dict class to use. If this is not specified or None the default MultiDict is used.
  • silent – If set to False parsing errors will not be caught.
Returns:

A tuple in the form (stream, form, files).

Header Parsing

The following functions can be used to parse incoming HTTP headers. Because Python does not provide data structures with the semantics required by RFC 2616, Werkzeug implements some custom data structures that are documented separately <http-datastructures>.

werkzeug.parse_options_header(value)

Parse a Content-Type like header into a tuple with the content type and the options:

>>> parse_options_header('Content-Type: text/html; mimetype=text/html')
('Content-Type: text/html', {'mimetype': 'text/html'})

This should not be used to parse Cache-Control like headers that use a slightly different format. For these headers use the parse_dict_header() function.

New in version 0.5.

Parameters:
  • value – the header to parse.
Returns:

(str, options)

werkzeug.parse_set_header(value, on_update=None)

Parse a set-like header and return a HeaderSet object:

>>> hs = parse_set_header('token, "quoted value"')

The return value is an object that treats the items case-insensitively and keeps the order of the items:

>>> 'TOKEN' in hs
True
>>> hs.index('quoted value')
1
>>> hs
HeaderSet(['token', 'quoted value'])

To create a header from the HeaderSet again, use the dump_header() function.

Parameters:
  • value – a set header to be parsed.
  • on_update – an optional callable that is called every time a value on the HeaderSet object is changed.
Returns:

a HeaderSet

werkzeug.parse_list_header(value)

Parse lists as described by RFC 2068 Section 2.

In particular, parse comma-separated lists where the elements of the list may include quoted-strings. A quoted-string could contain a comma. A non-quoted string could have quotes in the middle. Quotes are removed automatically after parsing.

It basically works like parse_set_header() just that items may appear multiple times and case sensitivity is preserved.

The return value is a standard list:

>>> parse_list_header('token, "quoted value"')
['token', 'quoted value']

To create a header from the list again, use the dump_header() function.

Parameters:
  • value – a string with a list header.
Returns:

<pending_xref py:class py:module=”werkzeug” refdoc=”http” refdomain=”py” refexplicit=”False” reftarget=”list” reftype=”class”><literal classes=”xref py py-class”>list</literal></pending_xref>

werkzeug.parse_dict_header(value)

Parse lists of key, value pairs as described by RFC 2068 Section 2 and convert them into a python dict:

>>> d = parse_dict_header('foo="is a fish", bar="as well"')
>>> type(d) is dict
True
>>> sorted(d.items())
[('bar', 'as well'), ('foo', 'is a fish')]

If there is no value for a key it will be None:

>>> parse_dict_header('key_without_value')
{'key_without_value': None}

To create a header from the dict again, use the dump_header() function.

Parameters:
  • value – a string with a dict header.
Returns:

<pending_xref py:class py:module=”werkzeug” refdoc=”http” refdomain=”py” refexplicit=”False” reftarget=”dict” reftype=”class”><literal classes=”xref py py-class”>dict</literal></pending_xref>

werkzeug.parse_accept_header(value[, class])

Parses an HTTP Accept-* header. This does not implement a complete valid algorithm but one that supports at least value and quality extraction.

Returns a new Accept object (basically a list of (value, quality) tuples sorted by the quality with some additional accessor methods).

The second parameter can be a subclass of Accept that is created with the parsed values and returned.

Parameters:
  • value – the accept header string to be parsed.
  • cls – the wrapper class for the return value (can be Accept or a subclass thereof)
Returns:

an instance of cls.

werkzeug.parse_cache_control_header(value, on_update=None, cls=None)

Parse a cache control header. The RFC differs between response and request cache control, this method does not. It’s your responsibility to not use the wrong control statements.

New in version 0.5: The cls was added. If not specified an immutable RequestCacheControl is returned.

Parameters:
  • value – a cache control header to be parsed.
  • on_update – an optional callable that is called every time a value on the CacheControl object is changed.
  • cls – the class for the returned object. By default RequestCacheControl is used.
Returns:

a cls object.

werkzeug.parse_authorization_header(value)

Parse an HTTP basic/digest authorization header transmitted by the web browser. The return value is either None if the header was invalid or not given, otherwise an Authorization object.

Parameters:
  • value – the authorization header to parse.
Returns:

a Authorization object or None.

werkzeug.parse_www_authenticate_header(value, on_update=None)

Parse an HTTP WWW-Authenticate header into a WWWAuthenticate object.

Parameters:
  • value – a WWW-Authenticate header to parse.
  • on_update – an optional callable that is called every time a value on the WWWAuthenticate object is changed.
Returns:

a WWWAuthenticate object.

Header Utilities

The following utilities operate on HTTP headers well but do not parse them. They are useful if you’re dealing with conditional responses or if you want to proxy arbtirary requests but want to remove WSGI-unsupported hop-by-hop headers. Also there is a function to create HTTP header strings from the parsed data.

werkzeug.is_entity_header(header)

Check if a header is an entity header.

New in version 0.5.

Parameters:
  • header – the header to test.
Returns:

<title_reference>True</title_reference> if it’s an entity header, False otherwise.

werkzeug.is_hop_by_hop_header(header)

Check if a header is an HTTP/1.1 “Hop-by-Hop” header.

New in version 0.5.

Parameters:
  • header – the header to test.
Returns:

<title_reference>True</title_reference> if it’s an entity header, False otherwise.

werkzeug.remove_entity_headers(headers, allowed=('expires', 'content-location'))

Remove all entity headers from a list or Headers object. This operation works in-place. Expires and Content-Location headers are by default not removed. The reason for this is RFC 2616 section 10.3.5 which specifies some entity headers that should be sent.

Changed in version 0.5: added allowed parameter.

Parameters:
  • headers – a list or Headers object.
  • allowed – a list of headers that should still be allowed even though they are entity headers.
werkzeug.remove_hop_by_hop_headers(headers)

Remove all HTTP/1.1 “Hop-by-Hop” headers from a list or Headers object. This operation works in-place.

New in version 0.5.

Parameters:
  • headers – a list or Headers object.
werkzeug.quote_header_value(value, extra_chars='', allow_token=True)

Quote a header value if necessary.

New in version 0.5.

Parameters:
  • value – the value to quote.
  • extra_chars – a list of extra characters to skip quoting.
  • allow_token – if this is enabled token values are returned unchanged.
werkzeug.unquote_header_value(value, is_filename=False)

Unquotes a header value. (Reversal of quote_header_value()). This does not use the real unquoting but what browsers are actually using for quoting.

New in version 0.5.

Parameters:
  • value – the header value to unquote.
werkzeug.dump_header(iterable, allow_token=True)

Dump an HTTP header again. This is the reversal of parse_list_header(), parse_set_header() and parse_dict_header(). This also quotes strings that include an equals sign unless you pass it as dict of key, value pairs.

>>> dump_header({'foo': 'bar baz'})
'foo="bar baz"'
>>> dump_header(('foo', 'bar baz'))
'foo, "bar baz"'
Parameters:
  • iterable – the iterable or dict of values to quote.
  • allow_token – if set to False tokens as values are disallowed. See quote_header_value() for more details.

Conditional Response Helpers

For conditional responses the following functions might be useful:

werkzeug.parse_etags(value)

Parse an etag header.

Parameters:
  • value – the tag header to parse
Returns:

an ETags object.

werkzeug.quote_etag(etag, weak=False)

Quote an etag.

Parameters:
  • etag – the etag to quote.
  • weak – set to True to tag it “weak”.
werkzeug.unquote_etag(etag)

Unquote a single etag:

>>> unquote_etag('w/"bar"')
('bar', True)
>>> unquote_etag('"bar"')
('bar', False)
Parameters:
  • etag – the etag identifier to unquote.
Returns:

a (etag, weak) tuple.

werkzeug.generate_etag(data)
Generate an etag for some data.
werkzeug.is_resource_modified(environ, etag=None, data=None, last_modified=None)

Convenience method for conditional requests.

Parameters:
  • environ – the WSGI environment of the request to be checked.
  • etag – the etag for the response for comparison.
  • data – or alternatively the data of the response to automatically generate an etag using generate_etag().
  • last_modified – an optional date of the last modification.
Returns:

<title_reference>True</title_reference> if the resource was modified, otherwise False.

Constants

werkzeug.HTTP_STATUS_CODES
A dict of status code -> default status message pairs. This is used by the wrappers and other places where a integer status code is expanded to a string throughout Werkzeug.