black/docs/blackd.md
2020-06-16 11:57:33 -07:00

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## blackd
`blackd` is a small HTTP server that exposes _Black_'s functionality over a simple
protocol. The main benefit of using it is to avoid the cost of starting up a new _Black_
process every time you want to blacken a file.
### Usage
`blackd` is not packaged alongside _Black_ by default because it has additional
dependencies. You will need to execute `pip install black[d]` to install it.
You can start the server on the default port, binding only to the local interface by
running `blackd`. You will see a single line mentioning the server's version, and the
host and port it's listening on. `blackd` will then print an access log similar to most
web servers on standard output, merged with any exception traces caused by invalid
formatting requests.
`blackd` provides even less options than _Black_. You can see them by running
`blackd --help`:
```text
Usage: blackd [OPTIONS]
Options:
--bind-host TEXT Address to bind the server to.
--bind-port INTEGER Port to listen on
--version Show the version and exit.
-h, --help Show this message and exit.
```
There is no official `blackd` client tool (yet!). You can test that blackd is working
using `curl`:
```sh
blackd --bind-port 9090 & # or let blackd choose a port
curl -s -XPOST "localhost:9090" -d "print('valid')"
```
### Protocol
`blackd` only accepts `POST` requests at the `/` path. The body of the request should
contain the python source code to be formatted, encoded according to the `charset` field
in the `Content-Type` request header. If no `charset` is specified, `blackd` assumes
`UTF-8`.
There are a few HTTP headers that control how the source code is formatted. These
correspond to command line flags for _Black_. There is one exception to this:
`X-Protocol-Version` which if present, should have the value `1`, otherwise the request
is rejected with `HTTP 501` (Not Implemented).
The headers controlling how source code is formatted are:
- `X-Line-Length`: corresponds to the `--line-length` command line flag.
- `X-Skip-String-Normalization`: corresponds to the `--skip-string-normalization`
command line flag. If present and its value is not the empty string, no string
normalization will be performed.
- `X-Fast-Or-Safe`: if set to `fast`, `blackd` will act as _Black_ does when passed the
`--fast` command line flag.
- `X-Python-Variant`: if set to `pyi`, `blackd` will act as _Black_ does when passed the
`--pyi` command line flag. Otherwise, its value must correspond to a Python version or
a set of comma-separated Python versions, optionally prefixed with `py`. For example,
to request code that is compatible with Python 3.5 and 3.6, set the header to
`py3.5,py3.6`.
- `X-Diff`: corresponds to the `--diff` command line flag. If present, a diff of the
formats will be output.
If any of these headers are set to invalid values, `blackd` returns a `HTTP 400` error
response, mentioning the name of the problematic header in the message body.
Apart from the above, `blackd` can produce the following response codes:
- `HTTP 204`: If the input is already well-formatted. The response body is empty.
- `HTTP 200`: If formatting was needed on the input. The response body contains the
blackened Python code, and the `Content-Type` header is set accordingly.
- `HTTP 400`: If the input contains a syntax error. Details of the error are returned in
the response body.
- `HTTP 500`: If there was any other kind of error while trying to format the input. The
response body contains a textual representation of the error.
The response headers include a `X-Black-Version` header containing the version of
_Black_.