Allow render_to_response() to take a content-type param

It doesn't mean dropping down to template_loader and HttpResponse objects. You can assign the mimetype to an HttpResponse object after the fact:

r = render_to_response('imageview/gallery', context_dict)
r.mimetype = 'application/xhtml+xml'
return r

For the dev version, revision 2923 (updated May 16) this works for me instead: r.headersContent-Type? = 'text/xml; charset=utf-8'

Cheers Stefan

I came here via a Google Search and the above helped, but is slightly incorrect.

As stated above you can modify a HttpResponse object before returning it. All HTTPResponse objects have a dictionary called "headers". So to change the HTTPResponse into XML.

r = render_to_response('imageview/gallery', context_dict)
r.headers['Content-Type'] = 'text/xml; charset=utf-8'
return r

Hmm, this seems less elegant now, and kind of a shame to have to add an extra line of code when it really makes sense as a parameter. Here's a patch, could this be re-reviewed?

Came here through google search looking for a way to do just this... I think it should be an optional named parameter. It's a fairly common task, and you need to be quite knowledgable of how Django works to do it at the moment.

Another vote for having an optional named parameter for this.

If accepted, the nameed paramater should probably be called content_type rather than mimetype. See #3526.

Can someone make a case for this on Django-developers?

I tried the first attached diff by James Wheare, but it didn't work for me, his method started like:

def render_to_response(mimetype=None, *args, **kwargs):

However, trying to call that method as follows:

def index(request):
	return render_to_response("myapp/index.html", {"foo": "bar"}, mimetype="application/xhtml+xml")

Results in the following error:

non keyword arg after keyword arg

I tried both adjusting the way I call his method, and the order of his methods parameters itself, in hope I could get it working, but no luck, I kept getting the same error.

So I fixed the bug myself and created a .diff file. I have throughly tested this and it works for all these cases:

def index(request):
	return render_to_response("myapp/index.html", {"foo": "bar"}, mimetype="application/xhtml+xml")

def index(request):
	return render_to_response("myapp/index.html", {"foo": "bar"})

def index(request):
	return render_to_response("myapp/index.html", mimetype="application/xhtml+xml")

def index(request):
	return render_to_response("myapp/index.html")

I used mimetype as the parameter name, since that was the same naming convention as in HttpResponse, but if anyone wants to change it to content_type instead, that's fine.

I hope this can be included soon, and this longstanding feature resolved. Many people would benefit from this, not only is it useful for serving XHTML files, but also RSS, XUL, and other XML based formats.

I will attach the .diff file.

Add support for mimetype in render_to_response() function

Add support for mimetype in render_to_response() function

Added documentation.

diff for code and docs

I'm working on reviewing this and checking it in.

(In [6217]) Fixed #1504 -- render_to_response() now takes a mimetype parameter