How to support both JSON or Form Data in Flask Routes ?

I have been recently working on a flask web API project. One of my API routes' is expecting data to be posted from a form, or sent via JSON payload (Swagger UI).  In this blog, we'll explore a smart approach to handling both JSON and form data seamlessly within your Flask routes. The challenge was in creating routes that can gracefully handle both scenarios without cumbersome if-else blocks.

data = request.json or request.form.to_dict()

This single line of code drastically simplifies the route's logic. Let's break it down:

• request.json attempts to parse the incoming data as JSON. If the data isn't in JSON format, it returns None.
• request.form.to_dict() takes care of parsing form data into a dictionary. This method returns an empty dictionary if no form data is present.

By using the or operator, we create a neat and efficient way to handle both JSON and form payload scenarios. 

from flask import Flask, request

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/process_data', methods=['POST'])
def process_data():
    data = request.json or request.form.to_dict()
     
    # Now you can work with the 'data' dictionary that contains the parsed payload
    username = data["username"]  

    return f'Data processed successfully for {username}'

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run()