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python async requests example

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 2 min read

Python async requests example

If you are working on any project that requires making HTTP requests, you might have noticed that some requests can take a considerable amount of time, which can cause delays in the rest of the program. Asynchronous programming can help to overcome this issue by allowing the program to continue executing other tasks while waiting for the response from the HTTP request.

Asyncio Library

In Python, we can use the asyncio library for asynchronous programming. This library provides support for writing asynchronous code using the async/await syntax.

We can use the asyncio library with the aiohttp library to make asynchronous HTTP requests. Let's see an example:


import aiohttp
import asyncio

async def fetch(session, url):
    async with session.get(url) as response:
        return await response.text()

async def main():
    async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:
        html = await fetch(session, 'https://www.example.com')
        print(html)

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
loop.run_until_complete(main())

In the above code, we have defined a coroutine function fetch that takes a session object and a url as input parameters. The function makes an HTTP request using the session object and returns the response text.

The main function is also a coroutine function that creates a client session using the aiohttp.ClientSession() function. It then calls the fetch function to make the HTTP request and retrieve the HTML content of the page. The HTML content is then printed to the console.

Finally, we create an event loop using the asyncio.get_event_loop() function and run the main coroutine function using the loop.run_until_complete() function.

Alternative library: httpx

Another library that we can use to make asynchronous HTTP requests in Python is httpx. It provides an async_client object that can be used to make asynchronous requests.

Here's an example:


import httpx
import asyncio

async def main():
    async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
        response = await client.get('https://www.example.com')
        print(response.text)

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
loop.run_until_complete(main())

The above code uses the httpx.AsyncClient() function to create an asynchronous client. The get method of the client object is used to make the HTTP request, and the response text is printed to the console.

We can also configure the client object with additional parameters such as headers and authentication credentials.

Conclusion

In this article, we have seen how to make asynchronous HTTP requests in Python using the asyncio and aiohttp libraries, as well as the httpx library. Asynchronous programming can help to improve the performance of our programs by allowing them to continue executing other tasks while waiting for responses from HTTP requests.

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