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python requests post nested json

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python Requests Post Nested JSON

As someone who has experience with Python and APIs, I have had to deal with nested JSONs while sending POST requests using the Requests library.

The Basics

Firstly, it is important to understand that JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format that is easy for humans to read and write, and easy for machines to parse and generate.

Secondly, Requests is a Python library that is used to send HTTP requests and returns a response in a format that can be parsed by Python.

Now, when sending POST requests with nested JSONs, the first step is to create a Python dictionary that will hold the nested JSON data. This dictionary can be created manually or can be generated dynamically using other data sources.

The Code

import requests
import json

data = {
    'name': 'John Doe',
    'age': 28,
    'address': [
        {
            'street': '123 Main St',
            'city': 'Anytown',
            'state': 'CA',
            'zip': '12345'
        },
        {
            'street': '456 Oak Ave',
            'city': 'Othertown',
            'state': 'CA',
            'zip': '67890'
        }
    ]
}

headers = {'Content-type': 'application/json'}
response = requests.post('https://example.com/api', data=json.dumps(data), headers=headers)

print(response.status_code)

In the above example, we have a nested JSON with a name, age and address. The address itself is a list of dictionaries with street, city, state and zip.

We create a header with content type as application/json, and then use the json.dumps() method to convert the dictionary into a JSON string.

Finally, we send the POST request to the desired API endpoint with the JSON data and headers. The response object contains the status code of the API call.

Alternative Method

Another method to send POST requests with nested JSONs is to use the json parameter in the requests.post() method.

response = requests.post('https://example.com/api', json=data, headers=headers)

In this case, we can directly pass the Python dictionary to the json parameter, and Requests will automatically convert it to a JSON string.

Conclusion

Sending POST requests with nested JSONs using Python Requests is a common task when working with APIs. By using the json.dumps() method or json parameter in the requests.post() method, we can easily send complex data structures to API endpoints.

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