Responses

Controller Methods

Most of the responses you will work with simply involve returning various data types / classes / objects in the controller method. For example, you may be used to returning a view.render() object in the controller method. This will return a View instance which Masonite will extract out the rendered html template from it.

Below is a list of all the responses you can return

Strings

You can simply return a string which will output the string to the browser:

def show(self):
    return 'string here'

This will set headers and content lengths similiar to a normal HTML response.

Views

You can return an instance of a View object which Masonite will then pull the HTML information that Jinja has rendered. This is the normal process of returning your templates. You can do so by type hinting the view class and using the render method:

from masonite.view import View

def show(self, view: View):
    return view.render('your/template', {'key': 'value'})

Notice you can also pass in a dictionary as a second argument which will pass those variables to your Jinja templates.

JSON (Dictionaries / Lists)

There are a few ways to return JSON responses. The easiest way is to simply return a dictionary like this:

def show(self):
    return {'key': 'value'}

This will return a response with the appropriate JSON related headers.

Similiarly you can return a list:

def show(self):
    return [1,2,3,4]

JSON (Models)

If you are working with models then its pretty easy to return a model as a JSON response by simply returning a model. This is useful when working with single records:

from app.User import User
# ...

def show(self):
    return User.find(1)

This will return a response like this:

{
    "id": 1,
    "name": "Brett Huber",
    "email": "hubbardtimothy@gmail.com",
    "password": "...",
    "remember_token": "...",
    "verified_at": null,
    "created_at": "2019-08-24T01:26:42.675467+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2019-08-24T01:26:42.675467+00:00",
}

JSON (Collections)

If you are working with collections you can return something similiar which will return a slightly different JSON response with several results:

from app.User import User
# ...

def show(self):
    return User.all()

Which will return a response like:

[
    {
        "id": 1,
        "name": "Brett Huber",
        "email": "hubbardtimothy@gmail.com",
        "password": "...",
        ...
    },
    {
        "id": 2,
        "name": "Jack Baird",
        "email": "phelpsrebecca@stanley.info",
        "password": "...",
        ...
    },
    ...
    }
]

JSON (Pagination)

If you need to paginate a response you can return an instance of Paginator. You can do so easily by using the paginate() method:

from app.User import User
# ...

def show(self):
    return User.paginate(10)

The value you pass in to the paginate method is the page size or limit of results you want to return.

This will return a response like:

{
    "total": 55,
    "count": 10,
    "per_page": 10,
    "current_page": 1,
    "last_page": 6,
    "from": 1,
    "to": 10,
    "data": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "name": "Brett Huber",
            "email": "hubbardtimothy@gmail.com",
            "password": "...",
            ...
        },
        {
            ...
        }

You can override the page size and page number by passing in the appropriate query inputs. You can change the page you are looking at by passing in a ?page= input and you can change the amount of results per page by using the ?page_size= input.

If you are building an API this might look like /api/users?page=2&page_size=5. This will return 5 results on page 2 for this endpoint.

Request Class (Redirections)

You can also return a few methods on the request class. These are mainly used for redirection.

For redirecting to a new route you can return the redirect() method:

from masonite.request import Request
# ...

def show(self, request: Request):
    return request.redirect('/some/route')

There are several different ways for redirecting like redirecting to a named route or redirecting back to the previous route. For a full list of request redirection methods read the Request Redirection docs.

Response Class

The response class is what Masonite uses internally but you can explicit use it if you find the need to. A need might include setting a response in a middleware or a service provider where Masonite does not handle all the response converting for you. It is typically used to condense a lot of redundant logic down throughout the framework like getting the response ready, status codes, content lengths and content types.

Previously this needed to be individually set but now the response object abstracts a lot of the logic. You will likely never need to encounter this object during normal development but it is documented here if you need to use it similarly to how we use it in core.

JSON Responses

We can set a JSON response by using the json() method. This simply requires a dictionary:

from masonite.response import Response

def show(self, response: Response):
    return response.json({'key': 'value'})

This will set the Content-Type, Content-Length, status code and the actual response for you.

Keep in mind this is the same thing as doing:

def show(self):
    return {'key': 'value'}

Since Masonite uses a middleware that abstracts this logic.

View and Text Response

The view() method either takes a View object or a string:

from masonite.response import Response
from masonite.view import View

def show(self, response: Response, view: View):
    return response.view('hello world')

def show(self, response: Response, view: View):
    return response.view(view.render('some.template'))

Setting Status Codes

Status codes can be set in the controller methods by 1 of 2 ways. The first way is to use the response object like above but set a status= parameter. Something like thihs:

from masonite.response import Response
from masonite.view import View

def show(self, response: Response, view: View):
    return response.view('hello world', status=401)

The second way is to use a normal response but return a tuple: The above example might look something like this:

from masonite.response import Response
from masonite.view import View

def show(self, response: Response, view: View):
    return 'hello world', 401

Redirecting

You can also use some very basic URL redirection using the response object:

from masonite.response import Response

def show(self, response: Response):
    return response.redirect('/some/route')

Responsable Classes

Responsable classes are classes that are allowed to be returned in your controller methods. These classes simply need to inherit a Responsable class and then contain a get_response method.

Let's take a look at a simple hello world example:

from masonite.response import Responsable

class HelloWorld(Responsable):

    def get_response(self):
        return 'hello world'

This class can now be returned in a controller method

from some.place import HelloWorld

def show(self):
    return HelloWorld()

Masonite will check if the response is an instance of Responsable and run the get_response method. This will show "Hello world" to the browser. This is actually how Masonites view class and mail classes work so you can see how powerful this can be.

Mailables

You can also return mailables. This is great if you want to debug what your emails will look like before you send them. You can do so by simply returning the mailable method of the mail class:

from app.mailables import WelcomeEmail

def show(self, mail: Mail):
    return mail.mailable(WelcomeEmail())

This will now show what the email will look like.

Download Images and Files

Sometimes you will want to return an image or a file like a PDF file. You can do with Masonite pretty easily by using the Download class. Simply pass it path to a file and Masonite will take care of the rest like setting the correct headers and getting the file content

from masonite.response import Download

def show(self):
    return Download('path/to/file.png')

This will display the image or file in the browser. You can also force a download in 1 of 2 ways:

from masonite.response import Download

def show(self):
    return Download('path/to/file.png').force()
    return Download('path/to/file.png', force=True)

Lastly you can change the name of the image when it downloads:

from masonite.response import Download

def show(self):
    return Download('path/to/file.png').force()
    return Download('path/to/file.png', name="new-file-name.jpg", force=True)