passing parameters in python requests

Passing Parameters in Python Requests

Python Requests is a powerful library used for making HTTP requests in Python. It is widely used for sending GET, POST, and other types of requests to APIs or web servers. Passing parameters in requests is a common task when working with APIs. In Python Requests, there are different ways to pass parameters in requests. Let's explore some of them:

Passing Parameters in the URL

The most common way to pass parameters in Python Requests is to include them in the URL as query parameters. Query parameters are key-value pairs that are appended to the end of a URL after a question mark (?), separated by an ampersand (&) if there are multiple parameters.


import requests

response = requests.get('https://api.example.com/users?id=123&name=John')
print(response.status_code)
  

In the above example, we are passing two parameters in the URL: id and name. The parameters are separated by an ampersand (&) and are preceded by a question mark (?). The response object contains the HTTP status code returned by the API.

Passing Parameters as a Dictionary

An alternative way to pass parameters in Python Requests is to use a dictionary object to store the parameters and then pass the dictionary as an argument to the request function.


import requests

payload = {'id': '123', 'name': 'John'}
response = requests.get('https://api.example.com/users', params=payload)
print(response.status_code)
  

In the above example, we are passing the same parameters as in the previous example, but this time we are using a dictionary object called payload to store the parameters. We then pass the payload dictionary as an argument to the params parameter of the get() function. The response object contains the HTTP status code returned by the API.

Passing Parameters in JSON Format

If you need to pass complex parameters, such as nested dictionaries or lists, you can pass them in JSON format. To do this, you need to convert the parameters to a JSON string using the json.dumps() function and then pass the string as an argument to the data parameter of the request function.


import requests
import json

payload = {'id': '123', 'name': 'John', 'address': {'city': 'New York', 'state': 'NY'}}
payload_json = json.dumps(payload)
response = requests.post('https://api.example.com/users', data=payload_json)
print(response.status_code)
  

In the above example, we are passing a nested dictionary called payload that contains three parameters: id, name, and address. We then convert the dictionary to a JSON string using the json.dumps() function and pass it as an argument to the data parameter of the post() function. The response object contains the HTTP status code returned by the API.