Menu
Article Bugs

python requests post content-length

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python Requests Post Content-Length

If you are working with Python and need to send data to a web server using the HTTP POST method, you can use the Python Requests library. When sending data via POST request, it is important to set the Content-Length header to the length of the data being sent. This is important for the server to properly receive the data and process it correctly.

Setting the Content-Length Header

To set the Content-Length header in a Requests POST request, you can pass a dictionary of headers to the request. The Content-Length header should be set to the length of the data being sent in bytes.


import requests

data = {'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'}
headers = {'Content-Length': str(len(data))}
response = requests.post('https://example.com', data=data, headers=headers)

In this example, we are sending a dictionary of data to the URL https://example.com using the POST method. We are also setting the Content-Length header to the length of the data in bytes using the len() function and converting it to a string.

Alternatively, you can use the json parameter to send JSON-encoded data. In this case, Requests will automatically set the Content-Type header to application/json and calculate the Content-Length header for you.


import requests

data = {'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'}
response = requests.post('https://example.com', json=data)

In this example, we are sending a dictionary of data to the URL https://example.com using the POST method. We are using the json parameter to encode the data as JSON and send it in the request body. Requests will automatically calculate the Content-Length header for us.

Conclusion

Setting the Content-Length header is important when sending data via POST request. It ensures that the server can properly receive and process the data. You can use the headers parameter to set the Content-Length header manually, or you can use the json parameter to encode the data as JSON and let Requests calculate the Content-Length header for you.

Share