Question

I’m pretty new to web development, so I’m just trying to see if I have the big picture right for what I am trying to do. Forgive me if any terminology is wrong.
My Django app needs to do the following:

1. User uploads a file through his browser
2. File is processed by the server (can take up to an hour)
3. User sees the results in his browser

I’m having trouble on how to accomplish step 2…here is what I am thinking:

1.User uploads a file (pretty straightforward)

2.File is processed – a view function would go something like this:

def process(request):
    a. (get file from the request)
    b. (return a page which says "the server is running your job, results will be available in {ETA}") 
    c. (start processing the data)

3.User sees the results in his browser – Browser queries the server at regular intervals to see if the job is done. When the job ready, the browser gets the results.

My question is, in step 2 parts b and c, how can I return a response to the browser without waiting to the process to finish? Or, how can I ensure the process keeps running after I return the results to the browser? The process should ideally have access to the Django environment variables, as it will work with a database through Django’s interface.

Answer 1

You need to off load the processing. You could use django-celery.