HttpResponse's flush method does not do anything

[arthur.vuillard@…]

HttpResponse flush method should flush the content previously written by the write method to the socket but this method doesn't do anything :

def flush(self):

pass

This method should be really useful in some Ajax web application.

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

HttpResponse classes are agnostic about the downstream communication method. So there's no concept of a socket or network connection for it to flush. I think you're trying to solve some problem with the wrong abstraction here. Comet-style data streaming and trying to have fine-grained control over output chunking would need attention in the HTTP handlers area, not in this class.

The only reason HttpResponse has a flush() method at all is because we need it to behave as a file-like object and some applications require flush() to exist (although it need not do anything, as noted by the Python docs).

You might wish to raise whatever problem you are trying to solve on django-users to get some ideas about how to handle it.