Modernize request attribute names

[Adam Johnson]

As discussed ​on the mailing list (back in May):

request.GET and request.POST are misleadingly named:

• GET contains the URL parameters and is therefore available whatever the request method. This often confuses beginners and “returners” alike.
• POST contains form data on POST requests, but not other kinds of data from POST requests. It can confuse users who are posting JSON or other formats.

Additionally both names can lead users to think e.g. "if request.GET:" means "if this is a GET request", which is not true.

I believe the CAPITALIZED naming style was inherited from PHP's global variables $_GET, $_POST, $_FILES etc. ( ​https://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.get.php ). It stands out as unpythonic, since these are instance variables and not module-level constants (as per PEP8 ​https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#constants ).

I therefore propose these renames:

• request.GET -> request.query_params (to match Django Rest Framework - see below)
• request.POST -> request.form_data
• request.FILES -> request.files
• request.COOKIES -> request.cookies
• request.META -> request.meta

The biggest concern on the mailing list was churn. Therefore we won't deprecate the old names, but will document them as historical aliases.

[אורי]

What will happen to existing code who will use request.GET or request.META?

I found out that we are also using request.LANGUAGE_CODE.

[Carlton Gibson]

I think the consensus was to have this.

Leaving the old API in place, documented just once in the request docs, is sufficient to avoid a forced rewrite. So +1.

(back in May)

Funnily enough this crossed my mind just yesterday too. :)

[Carlton Gibson]

I'm going to call this a New Feature. It will need release notes.

[Adam Johnson]

I found out that we are also using request.LANGUAGE_CODE.

Thanks. I'm not sure if this one is such high value to change, it's capitalized to indicate that it overrides the setting.

I'm going to call this a New Feature. It will need release notes.

Fair enough!

[Mariusz Felisiak]

Adam, thanks for creating a ticket. However, this change is really disruptive and it will affect everyone. In the case of such changes, it's crucial to have a strong consensus and clear significant benefits. I don't see a strong consensus on the mailing list and benefits are not convincing.