How do I return JSON without using a template in Django

Question

I have a command line Python API for a Django app. When I access the app through the API it should return JSON and with a browser it should return HTML. I can use different URLs to access the different versions but how do I render the HTML template and JSON in the views.py with just one template?

To render the HTML I would use:

return render_to_response('sample/sample.html....')

But how would I do the same for JSON without putting a JSON template? (the content-type should be application/json instead of text/html)

What would determine the JSON and HTML outputs?

So in my views.py:

if something:
    return render_to_response('html_template',.....)
else:
    return HttpReponse(jsondata,mimetype='application/json')

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

In the case of the JSON response there is no template to be rendered. Templates are for generating HTML responses. The JSON is the HTTP response.

However, you can have HTML that is rendered from a template withing your JSON response.

html = render_to_string("some.html", some_dictionary)
serialized_data = simplejson.dumps({"html": html})
return HttpResponse(serialized_data, mimetype="application/json")

Hope it works!!

Thank you!!