what does python requests do

What Does Python Requests Do?

Python requests is a popular library used for making HTTP requests in Python. It has many useful features and functions which make it easier to send HTTP requests and handle responses in a Pythonic way. Here are some of the things that Python requests can do:

  • Send HTTP/1.1 requests
  • Add headers, form data, files, and cookies to your requests
  • Handle redirects and authentication
  • Handle different types of responses, such as JSON, XML, and HTML
  • Stream large files
  • Use sessions to persist data across requests

To use Python requests, you simply need to import it into your Python script and then start making requests. Here is an example:


import requests

# Make a GET request
response = requests.get('https://www.example.com')

# Print the response content
print(response.content)
  

In this example, we import the requests library and then use the get() function to make a GET request to the URL 'https://www.example.com'. The response is then stored in the response variable, and we print out the content of the response using the content attribute.

Sending Data with Requests

You can also send data with your requests using various methods. Here are some examples:

  • Sending Query Parameters:

import requests

# Make a GET request with query parameters
response = requests.get('https://www.example.com', params={'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'})

# Print the response URL
print(response.url)
  

This example shows how to send query parameters with your GET request. The params parameter is used to pass a dictionary of key-value pairs, which are then added to the URL as query parameters.

  • Sending Form Data:

import requests

# Make a POST request with form data
response = requests.post('https://www.example.com', data={'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'})

# Print the response content
print(response.content)
  

This example shows how to send form data with your POST request. The data parameter is used to pass a dictionary of key-value pairs, which are then encoded and sent in the body of the request.