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python requests keep alive

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python Requests Keep Alive

When you make a request to a server using Python's Requests library, the default behavior is to close the connection after receiving the response. This means that the next time you make a request, a new connection has to be established, which can slow down your application. To avoid this, you can use the keep-alive feature in Requests.

How to Use Keep-Alive

To use keep-alive, you need to add the 'Connection' header to your requests, with a value of 'keep-alive':


import requests

url = 'https://example.com'
headers = {'Connection': 'keep-alive'}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)

print(response.text)

By adding this header, the connection will remain open after the response is received, and subsequent requests to the same server will reuse the existing connection. This can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to make multiple requests to the same server.

Alternative Ways to Use Keep-Alive

In addition to adding the 'Connection' header, there are a few other ways to enable keep-alive in Requests:

  • You can set the 'keep_alive' parameter when creating a session:

import requests

session = requests.Session()
session.keep_alive = True

response1 = session.get('https://example.com')
response2 = session.get('https://example.com')

print(response1.text)
print(response2.text)
  • You can set the 'Connection' header globally for all requests made with a session:

import requests

session = requests.Session()
session.headers.update({'Connection': 'keep-alive'})

response1 = session.get('https://example.com')
response2 = session.get('https://example.com')

print(response1.text)
print(response2.text)

Conclusion

Using the keep-alive feature in Requests can significantly improve the performance of your application by reducing the overhead of establishing new connections for each request. By adding the 'Connection' header, setting the 'keep_alive' parameter, or updating the global headers for your session, you can ensure that your requests reuse existing connections whenever possible.

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