Sending HTTP Requests

In Python, you can send HTTP requests using the “requests” module. The “requests” module simplifies the process of working with HTTP requests in Python by providing a higher-level interface to send HTTP requests.

To send an HTTP request in Python, you need to import the “requests” module and call the appropriate function for the request type you want to send (e.g., “get()” for a GET request, “post()” for a POST request).

GET Request

Here is an example of sending a GET request in Python:

import requests

response = requests.get("https://www.example.com")

print(response.text)

In this example, we use the “get()” function of the “requests” module to send a GET request to the “https://www.example.com” URL. The “get()” function returns a “Response” object, which contains the response data. You can access the response data using the “text” attribute of the “Response” object.

You can also send POST, PUT, DELETE, and other HTTP request types using the “post()”, “put()”, “delete()”, and other functions of the “requests” module.

POST Request

Here is an example of sending a POST request in Python:

import requests

data = {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "age": 30
}

response = requests.post("https://www.example.com", data=data)

print(response.text)

In this example, we use the “post()” function of the “requests” module to send a POST request to the “https://www.example.com” URL with a “name” and “age” field in the request body.

You can also set headers, cookies, and other request options using the “headers”, “cookies”, and other arguments of the “requests” functions.

Exercises

Here are some exercises with solutions to help you practice what you just learned:

import requests

response = requests.get("https://api.github.com/repos/python/cpython")

data = response.json()
print(data["name"])
print(data["description"])

import requests

data = {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "age": 30
}

response = requests.post("https://httpbin.org/post", data=data)

print(response.json())

import requests

response = requests.delete("https://httpbin.org/delete")

print(response.json())

import requests
import json

data = {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "age": 30
}

headers = {
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
}

response = requests.put("https://httpbin.org/put", json=data, headers=headers)

print(response.json())

import requests
import json

params = {
    "q": "language:python",
    "sort": "stars"
}

response = requests.get("https://api.github.com/search/repositories", params=params)

data = response.json()

for item in data["items"][:10]:
    print(item["name"])
    print(item["description"])
    print()