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what is requests.get in python

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 2 min read

What is requests.get in Python?

Python is a popular programming language that is used to build a wide range of applications. One of the key features of Python is its ability to interact with other systems and services, such as web APIs, through modules and libraries.

One such library that is widely used for making HTTP requests in Python is the Requests library. The Requests library is a simple, easy-to-use HTTP library that allows you to send HTTP/1.1 requests using Python.

The requests.get() Method

The requests.get() method is a function from the Requests library that makes an HTTP GET request to the specified URL.

Here is an example of how to use the requests.get() method:


import requests

response = requests.get('https://www.example.com')
print(response.text)

In this example, we import the Requests library and use the requests.get() method to make an HTTP GET request to https://www.example.com. We then print the HTML content of the response using the response.text attribute.

The Parameters of requests.get()

The requests.get() method can take several parameters, including:

  • url: A string representing the URL to be requested.
  • params: A dictionary, list of tuples or bytes to send in the query string for the Request.
  • headers: A dictionary of HTTP headers to send with the request.
  • cookies: A dictionary of cookie values to send with the request.
  • auth: A tuple containing the username and password to use for HTTP authentication.
  • timeout: The number of seconds to wait for a server response before timing out.

Here is an example of how to use some of these parameters:


import requests

params = {'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'}
headers = {'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'}

response = requests.get('https://www.example.com', params=params, headers=headers)
print(response.text)

In this example, we pass a dictionary of parameters to the params parameter and a dictionary of headers to the headers parameter. These parameters are included in the HTTP GET request that is sent to https://www.example.com.

Catching Exceptions

When working with web APIs, it is important to handle exceptions that may be raised by the Requests library. Some common exceptions that may occur include:

  • requests.exceptions.Timeout: Raised when the request times out.
  • requests.exceptions.HTTPError: Raised when an HTTP error occurs.
  • requests.exceptions.ConnectionError: Raised when a connection error occurs.

Here is an example of how to catch exceptions:


import requests

try:
  response = requests.get('https://www.example.com', timeout=0.01)
  response.raise_for_status()
except requests.exceptions.Timeout:
  print('The request timed out')
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError:
  print('An HTTP error occurred')
except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
  print('A connection error occurred')

In this example, we use a try block to make an HTTP GET request to https://www.example.com with a timeout of 0.01 seconds. We then use the raise_for_status() method to raise an exception if an HTTP error occurs. If an exception is raised, we catch it using the appropriate except block and print an error message.

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