Advanced Usage

This section includes guides for advanced usage patterns.

Custom Location Handlers

To add your own custom location handler, write a function that receives a request, an argument name, and a Field, then decorate that function with Parser.location_handler.

from webargs import fields
from webargs.flaskparser import parser

@parser.location_handler('data')
def parse_data(request, name, field):
    return request.data.get(name)

# Now 'data' can be specified as a location
@parser.use_args({'per_page': fields.Int()}, locations=('data', ))
def posts(args):
    return 'displaying {} posts'.format(args['per_page'])

Marshmallow Integration

When you need more flexibility in defining input schemas, you can pass a marshmallow Schema instead of a dictionary to Parser.parse, Parser.use_args, and Parser.use_kwargs.

from marshmallow import Schema, fields
from webargs.flaskparser import use_args

class UserSchema(Schema):
    id = fields.Int(dump_only=True)  # read-only (won't be parsed by webargs)
    username = fields.Str(required=True)
    password = fields.Str(load_only=True)  # write-only
    first_name = fields.Str(missing='')
    last_name = fields.Str(missing='')
    date_registered = fields.DateTime(dump_only=True)

    class Meta:
        strict = True


@use_args(UserSchema())
def profile_view(args):
    # ...

@use_kwargs(UserSchema())
def profile_update(username, password, first_name, last_name):
    # ...

# You can add additional parameters
@use_kwargs({'posts_per_page': fields.Int(missing=10, location='query')})
@use_args(UserSchema())
def profile_posts(args, posts_per_page):
    # ...

Warning

You should always set strict=True (either as a class Meta option or in the Schema’s constructor) when passing a schema to webargs. This will ensure that the parser’s error handler is invoked when expected.

Warning

Any Schema passed to use_kwargs MUST deserialize to a dictionary of data. Keep this in mind when writing post_load methods.

Schema Factories

If you need to parametrize a schema based on a given request, you can use a “Schema factory”: a callable that receives the current request and returns a marshmallow.Schema instance.

Consider the following use cases:

  • Filtering via a query parameter by passing only to the Schema.

  • Handle partial updates for PATCH requests using marshmallow’s partial loading API.

from marshmallow import Schema, fields
from webargs.flaskparser import use_args

class UserSchema(Schema):
    id = fields.Int(dump_only=True)
    username = fields.Str(required=True)
    password = fields.Str(load_only=True)
    first_name = fields.Str(missing='')
    last_name = fields.Str(missing='')
    date_registered = fields.DateTime(dump_only=True)

    class Meta:
        strict = True

def make_user_schema(request):
    # Filter based on 'fields' query parameter
    only = request.args.get('fields', None)
    # Respect partial updates for PATCH requests
    partial = request.method == 'PATCH'
    # Add current request to the schema's context
    return UserSchema(only=only, partial=partial, context={'request': request})

# Pass the factory to .parse, .use_args, or .use_kwargs
@use_args(make_user_schema):
def profile_view(args):
    # ...

Reducing Boilerplate

We can reduce boilerplate and improve [re]usability with a simple helper function:

from webargs.flaskparser import use_args

def use_args_with(schema_cls, schema_kwargs=None, **kwargs):
    schema_kwargs = schema_kwargs or {}
    def factory(request):
        # Filter based on 'fields' query parameter
        only = request.args.get('fields', None)
        # Respect partial updates for PATCH requests
        partial = request.method == 'PATCH'
        # Add current request to the schema's context
        # and ensure we're always using strict mode
        return schema_cls(
            only=only, partial=partial, strict=True,
            context={'request': request}, **schema_kwargs
        )
    return use_args(factory, **kwargs)

Now we can attach input schemas to our view functions like so:

@use_args_with(UserSchema)
def profile_view(args):
    # ...

Custom Fields

See the “Custom Fields” section of the marshmallow docs for a detailed guide on defining custom fields which you can pass to webargs parsers: https://marshmallow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/custom_fields.html.

Using Method and Function Fields with webargs

Using the Method and Function fields requires that you pass the deserialize parameter.

@use_args({
    'cube': fields.Function(deserialize=lambda x: int(x) ** 3)
})
def math_view(args):
    cube = args['cube']
    # ...

Custom Parsers

To add your own parser, extend Parser and implement the parse_* method(s) you need to override. For example, here is a custom Flask parser that handles nested query string arguments.

import re

from webargs import core
from webargs.flaskparser import FlaskParser

class NestedQueryFlaskParser(FlaskParser):
    """Parses nested query args

    This parser handles nested query args. It expects nested levels
    delimited by a period and then deserializes the query args into a
    nested dict.

    For example, the URL query params `?name.first=John&name.last=Boone`
    will yield the following dict:

        {
            'name': {
                'first': 'John',
                'last': 'Boone',
            }
        }
    """

    def parse_querystring(self, req, name, field):
        return core.get_value(_structure_dict(req.args), name, field)


def _structure_dict(dict_):
    def structure_dict_pair(r, key, value):
        m = re.match(r'(\w+)\.(.*)', key)
        if m:
            if r.get(m.group(1)) is None:
                r[m.group(1)] = {}
            structure_dict_pair(r[m.group(1)], m.group(2), value)
        else:
            r[key] = value
    r = {}
    for k, v in dict_.items():
        structure_dict_pair(r, k, v)
    return r

Bulk-type Arguments

In order to parse a JSON array of objects, pass many=True to your input Schema .

For example, you might implement JSON PATCH according to RFC 6902 like so:

from webargs import fields
from webargs.flaskparser import use_args
from marshmallow import Schema, validate

class PatchSchema(Schema):
    op = fields.Str(
        required=True,
        validate=validate.OneOf(['add', 'remove', 'replace', 'move', 'copy'])
    )
    path = fields.Str(required=True)
    value = fields.Str(required=True)

    class Meta:
        strict = True


@app.route('/profile/', methods=['patch'])
@use_args(PatchSchema(many=True), locations=('json', ))
def patch_blog(args):
    """Implements JSON Patch for the user profile

    Example JSON body:

    [
        {"op": "replace", "path": "/email", "value": "mynewemail@test.org"}
    ]
    """
    # ...

Mixing Locations

Arguments for different locations can be specified by passing location to each field individually:

@app.route('/stacked', methods=['POST'])
@use_args({
    'page': fields.Int(location='query')
    'q': fields.Str(location='query')
    'name': fields.Str(location='json'),
})
def viewfunc(args):
    # ...

Alternatively, you can pass multiple locations to use_args:

@app.route('/stacked', methods=['POST'])
@use_args({
    'page': fields.Int()
    'q': fields.Str()
    'name': fields.Str(),
} , locations=('query', 'json'))
def viewfunc(args):
    # ...

However, this allows page and q to be passed in the request body and name to be passed as a query parameter.

To restrict the arguments to single locations without having to pass location to every field, you can call the use_args multiple times:

query_args = {
    'page': fields.Int()
    'q': fields.Int()
}
json_args = {
    'name': fields.Str(),
}
@app.route('/stacked', methods=['POST'])
@use_args(query_args, locations=('query', ))
@use_args(json_args, locations=('json', ))
def viewfunc(query_parsed, json_parsed):
    # ...

To reduce boilerplate, you could create shortcuts, like so:

import functools

query = functools.partial(use_args, locations=('query', ))
body = functools.partial(use_args, locations=('json', ))

@query(query_args)
@body(json_args)
def viewfunc(query_parsed, json_parsed):
    # ...

Next Steps