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python requests_toolbelt

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

What is Python Requests Toolbelt?

Python Requests Toolbelt is a package that provides additional utilities for the Python Requests library. It includes tools for multipart-encoded files, streaming uploads, and more.

How to Install Python Requests Toolbelt?

To install Python Requests Toolbelt, you can use pip - the Python package installer:


pip install requests-toolbelt

Using Python Requests Toolbelt

Multipart Encoded Files

One of the most useful features of Python Requests Toolbelt is its ability to handle multipart-encoded files. This is useful when uploading files to a server, for example.

To use this feature, you can use the MultipartEncoder class:


from requests_toolbelt import MultipartEncoder

file = {'file': ('filename', open('file.txt', 'rb'), 'text/plain')}
encoder = MultipartEncoder(fields=file)

response = requests.post('http://example.com/upload', data=encoder, headers={'Content-Type': encoder.content_type})

In the above example, we create a dictionary with one key 'file' and its value is a tuple containing the file name, file object and content type. We then create an instance of MultipartEncoder with this dictionary and pass it as data in our POST request.

Streaming Uploads

Another useful feature of Python Requests Toolbelt is the ability to stream uploads. This is useful when uploading large files that may not fit into memory.

To use this feature, you can use the MultipartEncoderMonitor class:


from requests_toolbelt import MultipartEncoderMonitor

def callback(monitor):
    if monitor.bytes_read > 0:
        percent = monitor.bytes_read * 100 / monitor.len
        print(f'{percent}% complete')

file = {'file': ('filename', open('file.txt', 'rb'), 'text/plain')}
encoder = MultipartEncoder(fields=file)

monitor = MultipartEncoderMonitor(encoder, callback)

response = requests.post('http://example.com/upload', data=monitor, headers={'Content-Type': monitor.content_type})

In the above example, we create a dictionary with one key 'file' and its value is a tuple containing the file name, file object and content type. We then create an instance of MultipartEncoder with this dictionary and pass it to MultipartEncoderMonitor along with a callback function that gets called every time a chunk of data is uploaded. We then pass the MultipartEncoderMonitor instance as data in our POST request.

Other Features

Python Requests Toolbelt also includes other features such as:

  • Streaming downloads
  • Unicode file names support
  • File-like objects support
  • And more!

For more information and examples, check out the official documentation.

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