Python server programming: using the Requests library to initiate HTTP requests

Python has always been a very popular programming language, especially in the field of server programming. Python's Requests library is a very popular library that provides a convenient API to initiate HTTP requests in Python programs. This article will introduce how to use the Requests library to initiate HTTP requests.

1. Introduction to the Requests library

The Requests library is an HTTP client library in Python. It simplifies the HTTP request process and enables developers to interact with the network more conveniently. The Requests library makes it easy to make HTTP requests and also handle HTTP responses. The Requests library has the following characteristics:

• The Requests library is Python’s own library and does not require additional installation.
• Requests supports various HTTP request methods, including GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.
• Requests supports various authentication and encryption mechanisms of HTTP
• Requests supports various HTTP response parsing formats, including JSON, XML, etc.

2. Initiating a GET request

Before using the Requests library to initiate an HTTP request, we need to import the Requests library first. The following is an example of using the Requests library to initiate a GET request:

import requests url = 'http://example.com' response = requests.get(url) print(response.status_code) print(response.content)

In this example, we first imported the Requests library, and then defined a url variable, which stores the URL we want to visit. Then we use the get() method to initiate a GET request and store the response result in the response variable. Finally, we print the response status code and response content.

3. Initiate POST request

In addition to GET requests, the Requests library also supports POST requests. POST requests are typically used to submit data to the server. The following is an example of using the Requests library to initiate a POST request:

import requests url = 'http://example.com/login' data = { 'username': 'username', 'password': 'password', } response = requests.post(url, data=data) print(response.status_code) print(response.content)

In this example, we first define a url variable, which stores the URL of the login page we want to access. Next, we define a data variable that stores the data we want to submit to the server. Then, we use the post() method to initiate a POST request and store the response results in the response variable. Finally, we print the response status code and response content.

4. Set the request header

Sometimes, when sending an HTTP request to the server, we need to set the request header. The request header contains all the information we send to the server in the request, including the request method, the request path, the request parameters, the requested content type, the requested cookie, etc. The Requests library provides many methods to set request headers. The following is an example of setting request headers using the Requests library:

import requests url = 'http://example.com' headers = { 'Content-type': 'application/json', 'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)' } response = requests.get(url, headers=headers) print(response.status_code) print(response.content)

In this example, we first define a url variable, which stores the URL we want to visit. Next, we define a headers variable, which stores the request header information we want to set. Finally, we use the get() method to initiate a GET request and store the response result in the response variable. Finally, we print the response status code and response content.

5. Processing HTTP responses

The Requests library supports HTTP response parsing in various protocols and encodings, such as JSON, XML, HTML, etc. We can choose different parsing methods according to actual needs. Here is an example of using the Requests library to parse a JSON format response:

import requests url = 'https://api.github.com/users/octocat/repos' response = requests.get(url) repos = response.json() for repo in repos: print(repo['name'])

In this example, we first define a url variable, which stores the URL we want to visit. Then, we use the get() method to initiate a GET request and store the response result in the response variable. Finally, we use the json() method to format the response content into JSON format, and use a for loop to loop through each repo object and print out the name of the repo.

6. HTTP Authentication

If the accessed URL requires HTTP authentication, then we need to add authentication information in the request header. The Requests library provides many methods to handle HTTP authentication, such as HTTPBasicAuth and HTTPDigestAuth. The following is an example of using the Requests library for HTTP authentication:

import requests from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth url = 'http://httpbin.org/basic-auth/user/passwd' response = requests.get(url, auth=HTTPBasicAuth('user', 'passwd')) print(response.status_code) print(response.content)

In this example, we first define a url variable, which stores the URL with HTTP authentication information we want to access. Then, we use the get() method to initiate a GET request and pass the authentication information to the auth parameter. Finally, we print the response status code and response content. If authentication fails, a 401 error will be returned.

7. HTTPS

By default, the Requests library will verify the HTTPS certificate. If you need to disable HTTPS certificate verification, you can set the verify parameter to False. Here is an example of using the Requests library to disable HTTPS certificate verification:

import requests url = 'https://httpbin.org/get' response = requests.get(url, verify=False) print(response.status_code) print(response.content)

In this example, we first define a url variable that stores the HTTPS URL we want to access. Then, we use the get() method to initiate a GET request and set the verify parameter to False to disable HTTPS certificate verification. Finally, we print the response status code and response content.

8. Summary

This article introduces how to use the Requests library to initiate HTTP requests. The Requests library can easily initiate HTTP requests and handle HTTP responses. It also supports various HTTP authentication and encryption mechanisms, making it very suitable for Python server programming. If you want to know more about the Requests library, please check out the official documentation of the Requests library.

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