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python requests best practices

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python Requests Best Practices

If you are working with Python and making HTTP requests, the requests library is an essential tool that makes the process of sending requests and handling responses smooth and easy. However, it's important to follow best practices to ensure that your code is efficient, secure, and maintainable.

1. Use the latest version of requests

As with any software tool, it's important to keep up-to-date with the latest version of requests. This will ensure that you have access to the latest features and bug fixes, as well as any security updates. You can install the latest version of requests using pip:


    pip install --upgrade requests

2. Use SSL/TLS

When making HTTP requests, it's important to ensure that your communication is encrypted to prevent eavesdropping or tampering. The requests library provides built-in support for SSL/TLS encryption, which you can enable by using HTTPS URLs instead of HTTP and passing the verify=True argument:


    import requests
    
    response = requests.get("https://example.com", verify=True)

3. Set timeouts

It's important to set timeouts when making HTTP requests to prevent your code from hanging indefinitely if the server fails to respond. You can set a timeout by passing the timeout argument to any request method:


    import requests
    
    response = requests.get("https://example.com", timeout=3)

4. Use session objects

If you are making multiple requests to the same server, it's more efficient to use a session object instead of creating a new connection for each request. A session object will reuse the underlying TCP connection and also persist cookies and other authentication information between requests:


    import requests
    
    session = requests.Session()
    
    response1 = session.get("https://example.com")
    response2 = session.post("https://example.com/login", data={"username": "myusername", "password": "mypassword"})

5. Handle errors gracefully

When making HTTP requests, there are many things that can go wrong, such as network errors, server errors, or invalid responses. It's important to handle these errors gracefully and provide appropriate feedback to the user. You can use the try-except statement to catch exceptions raised by requests:


    import requests
    
    try:
        response = requests.get("https://example.com")
        response.raise_for_status()
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
        print("Error: ", e)
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