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python requests library login

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 2 min read

Python Requests Library Login

Python requests library is a widely used library for making HTTP requests in Python. It is very useful when it comes to making HTTP requests to an API or a website. In this article, we will discuss how to use Python requests library to login to a website.

Using requests.Session()

The easiest way to login to a website using Python requests library is by creating a session object. This can be done using the requests.Session() method. The session object is used to persist parameters across requests. This means that you can use the same session object for multiple requests and not have to worry about cookies, authentication tokens, etc.

Here is a code snippet that demonstrates how to use the session object to login to a website:


import requests

# Create a session object
session = requests.Session()

# Define the login URL and payload
login_url = "http://example.com/login"
payload = {
    "username": "my_username",
    "password": "my_password"
}

# Send a POST request to the login URL with the payload
response = session.post(login_url, data=payload)

# Check if the login was successful
if "Login failed" not in response.text:
    print("Login successful!")
else:
    print("Login failed!")

In this code snippet, we first create a session object using the requests.Session() method. We then define the login URL and the payload, which contains our username and password. We then send a POST request to the login URL with the payload using the session object's post() method. Finally, we check if the login was successful by checking for the presence of the string "Login failed" in the response text.

Using cookies

Another way to login to a website using Python requests library is by using cookies. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored on the client-side and sent to the server with each request. In order to use cookies to login to a website, we first need to make a GET request to the login page to get the initial cookies. We can then use these cookies to make a POST request to the login URL with our username and password.

Here is a code snippet that demonstrates how to use cookies to login to a website:


import requests

# Define the login URL and payload
login_url = "http://example.com/login"
payload = {
    "username": "my_username",
    "password": "my_password"
}

# Make a GET request to the login page to get the initial cookies
response = requests.get(login_url)

# Get the cookies from the response
cookies = response.cookies

# Send a POST request to the login URL with the payload and cookies
response = requests.post(login_url, data=payload, cookies=cookies)

# Check if the login was successful
if "Login failed" not in response.text:
    print("Login successful!")
else:
    print("Login failed!")

In this code snippet, we first define the login URL and the payload, which contains our username and password. We then make a GET request to the login page to get the initial cookies. We get the cookies from the response object and store them in a variable called cookies. We then send a POST request to the login URL with the payload and cookies using the requests.post() method. Finally, we check if the login was successful by checking for the presence of the string "Login failed" in the response text.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Python requests library is a very useful library when it comes to making HTTP requests in Python. It provides a simple and easy-to-use interface for making HTTP requests and handling responses. In this article, we discussed how to use Python requests library to login to a website using both session objects and cookies.

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