jQuery AJAX request gets called twice when using Jquery, Django and Google App Engine

Question

I'm using Google App Engine, Jquery and Django. I want POST data to be sent to the server side when a form is submitted, and I do this in JQuery with the following code:

    $("#listform").submit(function() {
            $.ajax({
                    type: "POST",
                    url: "/xhrtest",
                    data: {'name': 'herman'},
                    success: function(data){
                            console.log(data)
                    }
            });
    })

In my Django view:

def xhrtest(request):
        if request.method == "POST":
                return HttpResponse("Post data!")
        else:
                return HttpResponse("GET request.")

I would have expected to receive a reply of "Post data!", but somehow the reply is always "GET request". This is not an unicode issue either, since one can print the request.method and see "GET".

When assessing this in Firebug, I see two requests going through: First a POST request, which receives the reply "GET request." and then a GET request, which receives the reply "Get request." as well. In the Google App Engine development console I can also see two requests going through. The POST request is met with a 301 response, and the GET with 200.

What does this mean, and what do I have to do be able to receive POST data?

Answer 1

The problem is almost certainly that you are requesting the url /xhrtest, without a final slash. By default, Django will redirect that request to /xhrtest/ - with a final slash - and that redirection will be a GET, not a POST.

For more info, see the APPEND_SLASH setting that configures this behavior and CommonMiddleware module that uses it.