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python requests binary data

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python Requests Binary Data

If you are working with binary data in Python, you can use the Requests library to make HTTP requests and retrieve binary data from a web server. Binary data can include any type of data, such as images, audio files, and video files.

When making a request with the Requests library, you need to specify that you want binary data by setting the stream parameter to True in the get() method.


import requests

response = requests.get('http://example.com/image.jpg', stream=True)
if response.status_code == 200:
    with open('image.jpg', 'wb') as f:
        for chunk in response.iter_content(1024):
            f.write(chunk)
    print('Image downloaded successfully')
else:
    print('Failed to download image')

In the above code, we are making a GET request to an image file on a web server. We are setting the stream parameter to True to ensure that we receive the data in chunks instead of all at once. We then loop through each chunk and write it to a file using the write() method of the file object.

If the request is successful (status code 200), we print a success message. Otherwise, we print a failure message.

Other Methods to Retrieve Binary Data

In addition to using the get() method with the stream parameter, you can also use the following methods to retrieve binary data:

  • content: Returns the raw bytes of the response.
  • iter_content(): Returns the response content as a generator that produces chunks of a specified size.
  • iter_lines(): Returns the response content as a generator that produces lines of text.

Choose the method that best fits your needs and use it accordingly.

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