Get raw POST body in Python Flask regardless of Content-Type header

Question

Previously, I asked How to get data received in Flask request because request.data was empty. The answer explained that request.data is the raw post body, but will be empty if form data is parsed. How can I get the raw post body unconditionally?

@app.route('/', methods=['POST'])
def parse_request():
    data = request.data  # empty in some cases
    # always need raw data here, not parsed form data

Answer 1

Use request.get_data() to get the raw data, regardless of content type. The data is cached and you can subsequently access request.data, request.json, request.form at will.

If you access request.data first, it will call get_data with an argument to parse form data first. If the request has a form content type (multipart/form-data, application/x-www-form-urlencoded, or application/x-url-encoded) then the raw data will be consumed. request.data and request.json will appear empty in this case.