Cookbooks
Python
Chapter 11. HTML and the Web
Sending an HTTP request

Python:
Sending an HTTP request

How to:

Python’s third-party requests library makes HTTP calls a breeze. Below is how to send a simple GET request:

import requests

response = requests.get('https://api.example.com/data')
print(response.status_code)  # Outputs the status code of the response
print(response.json())      # If response carries JSON, prints it as a Python dict

More detailed POST request with JSON payload and custom headers:

import requests
import json

url = "https://api.example.com/submit"
data = {'key': 'value'}
headers = {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}

response = requests.post(url, data=json.dumps(data), headers=headers)

print(response.status_code)
print(response.json())

Deep Dive

HTTP requests are how the web works — they’ve been around since the early 90s. Alternatives to Python’s requests include the standard library’s urllib, but it’s a bit more cumbersome.

Understanding how to send HTTP requests involves knowing methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.), status codes (e.g., 200 OK, 404 Not Found), headers, and body data.

For streaming or asynchronous requests, you might explore requests’ async counterpart or the aiohttp package. Underneath, these libraries use Python’s socket for raw network communication.

Historically, requests is considered a go-to due to its simplicity and power, but httpx, a newer async-compatible library, is gaining traction.

See Also

Parsing HTMLSending an HTTP request with basic authentication