The next step is to have the POST request
- store the data
- take us to the next page
We will pretend like there is only one question for now. We will add Python magic later, to tell the application how to know when to stop displaying questions.
The name and age information will be used to write a file called name_age.txt, which will store responses to the questions in the quiz. Edit the file called application_lulu.py to do this:
from flask import Flask,render_template,request
app_lulu = Flask(__name__)
app_lulu.vars={}
@app_lulu.route('/index_lulu',methods=['GET','POST'])
def index_lulu():
nquestions=5
if request.method == 'GET':
return render_template('userinfo_lulu.html',num=nquestions)
else:
#request was a POST
app_lulu.vars['name'] = request.form['name_lulu']
app_lulu.vars['age'] = request.form['age_lulu']
f = open('%s_%s.txt'%(app_lulu.vars['name'],app_lulu.vars['age']),'w')
f.write('Name: %s\n'%(app_lulu.vars['name']))
f.write('Age: %s\n\n'%(app_lulu.vars['age']))
f.close()
return 'request.method was not a GET!'
if __name__ == "__main__":
app_lulu.run(debug=True)You can try running this on the server. Enter your name and age, click on Submit. You should find a new file saved to your ~/MyFlaskTutorial directory called name_age.txt.
Note that we're making a dictionary called vars as an attribute of app_lulu. This will allow us to access those variables in other functions inside application_lulu.py. In the future, we can store other variables here.
You will also notice that we are accessing a dictionary called form that is an attribute of request. I mentioned this earlier: these names are identifiers for the form fields from the HTML template files. You can check out ~/MyFlaskTutorial/templates/userinfo_lulu.html to see that we named the name and age fields name_lulu and age_lulu, respectively.
Writing files is a Python skill. You can read about this elsewhere, but it's pretty straightforward.
Next, we will turn our attention to making the HTML template to return.
Open a file called layout_lulu.html inside the ~/MyFlaskTutorial/templates/ directory. Edit it to look like this:
<!doctype html>
<title>A short quiz</title>
<link rel=stylesheet type=text/css href='{{ url_for('static',filename='style_lulu.css')}}'>
<div class=page>
<h1>Question #{{num}}</h1>
<div class=metanav>
{{question}}
<h4>
<form id='answerform_lulu' method='post' action='next_lulu' >
<p>
Answer: <br />
<input type='radio' name='answer_lulu' value={{ans1}} /> {{ans1}} <br />
<input type='radio' name='answer_lulu' value={{ans2}} /> {{ans2}} <br />
<input type='radio' name='answer_lulu' value={{ans3}} /> {{ans3}} <br />
</p>
<p>
<input type='submit' value='Next_lulu' />
</p>
</form>
</h4>
</div>
</div>This is using some HTML skills about forms. You can look up different types of HTML forms online. I'm sure Google will tell you. Some types are: text, password, radio, and checkbox.
Now, you probably already realize that we need to refer to this HTML template with two variables, num (which will be the question number) and question (which will be the question asked). The radio button form has a number of choices, but the user can only select one answer. The user data can be referred to as request.form['answer_lulu'] in the application_lulu.py file.
Next, we want to make the application_lulu.py program render this new HTML template. Let's do this for one question first, then we can add more questions.
Open application_lulu.py and replace the appropriate return line with this. Try to do it yourself. If you can't figure it out, the full text is right below:
return render_template('layout_lulu.html',num=1,question='How many eyes do you have?',ans1='1',\
ans2='2',ans3='3')The full application_lulu.py should look like:
from flask import Flask,render_template,request
app_lulu = Flask(__name__)
app_lulu.vars={}
@app_lulu.route('/index_lulu',methods=['GET','POST'])
def index_lulu():
nquestions=5
if request.method == 'GET':
return render_template('userinfo_lulu.html',num=nquestions)
else:
#request was a POST
app_lulu.vars['name'] = request.form['name_lulu']
app_lulu.vars['age'] = request.form['age_lulu']
f = open('%s_%s.txt'%(app_lulu.vars['name'],app_lulu.vars['age']),'w')
f.write('Name: %s\n'%(app_lulu.vars['name']))
f.write('Age: %s\n\n'%(app_lulu.vars['age']))
f.close()
return render_template('layout_lulu.html',num=1,question='How many eyes do you have?',ans1='1',\
ans2='2',ans3='3')
if __name__ == "__main__":
app_lulu.run(debug=True)Try running the application again. To remind you, navigate to ~/MyFlaskTutorial and type:
python application_lulu.pyThen go to 127.0.0.1:5000/index_lulu. Enter your information, then click on Submit..
DID YOU GET TO YOUR QUESTION PAGE? I HOPE SO!
Answer the question, then click on Next. You should be at the address 127.0.0.1:5000/next_lulu and you should get an error that says:
Not Found
The requested URL was not found on the server.
If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again.That's because we HAVEN'T TOLD THE SERVER what to do when the URL /next_lulu is requested. We told it to go to /next_lulu in the HTML template (layout_lulu.html), where we instructed the form to take the action equal to /next_lulu. The server goes looking for a function inside application_lulu.py that is wrapped by the decorator that has /next_lulu as the argument. Look over the code to see that it all links together.
There's no @app_lulu.route('/next_lulu`), right? LET'S FIX THAT NEXT.