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python requests download

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 2 min read

Python Requests Download

Python Requests is a popular Python library used for making HTTP requests. It makes it easy to send HTTP/1.1 requests extremely quickly by using simple and natural syntax. In this post, we will learn how to use Python Requests module to download files from the Internet.

Using Requests.get() method

The simplest way to download a file is by using the Requests.get() method. This method sends a GET request to the specified URL and returns a Response object.


import requests

url = "https://example.com/file.png"
response = requests.get(url)

with open("file.png", "wb") as f:
    f.write(response.content)

In the above code, we first import the requests module and then specify the URL of the file we want to download. Then, we use the get() method to send a GET request to the specified URL and store the response in a variable named response. Finally, we open a file named "file.png" in binary write mode and write the content of the response object to it using the write() method.

Using Streaming Requests

When dealing with large files or when you don't want to load the entire response into memory at once, you can use streaming requests. Streaming requests are useful when you don't want to download the entire file at once and want to process it in chunks.


import requests

url = "https://example.com/largefile.zip"
response = requests.get(url, stream=True)

with open("largefile.zip", "wb") as f:
    for chunk in response.iter_content(chunk_size=1024):
        if chunk:
            f.write(chunk)

In the above code, we first set the stream parameter to True in the get() method to get a streaming response. Then, we use the iter_content() method to iterate over the response in chunks of 1024 bytes. Finally, we open a file named "largefile.zip" in binary write mode and write each chunk to it.

Using with statement and shutil

The with statement in Python is used to wrap the execution of a block of code with methods defined by a context manager. The context manager is responsible for setting up and tearing down any resources that are needed by the block of code.


import requests
import shutil

url = "https://example.com/file.pdf"
with requests.get(url, stream=True) as r:
    with open("file.pdf", "wb") as f:
        shutil.copyfileobj(r.raw, f)

In the above code, we first import the shutil module which provides a higher level interface for file operations. Then, we use the with statement to wrap the execution of our code block. In the inner with statement, we open a file named "file.pdf" in binary write mode and copy the contents of the raw response object to it using copyfileobj() method of shutil module.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have learned how to download files using Python Requests library. We have discussed three different ways to download files; Using Requests.get() method, Using Streaming Requests and Using with statement and shutil. You can use any of these methods based on your requirement and file size.

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