In this article, we’ll look at the Requests module in python and its basic operation with some examples and then finally we will conclude.
Installation
Python versions 2.6-2.7 and 3.3-3.6 supports the request module. Request is an external module so you have to install it by writing the following in your command prompt or terminal:
Before we move on you need to make sure of two things:
– Requests library is installed properly if not follow the link (http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/user/install/#install)
-Requests library is up-to-date if not follow the link to check (http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/community/updates/#updates)
GET and POST Requests
Start off by importing requests. Now we are going to try to get a webpage using get request.
R_webpage = requests.get(‘http://www.dataversity.net/’)
R_webpage is a response object. All the information about the web page can be extracted from this object.
Now, if you want to make a post request:
R_post = requests.post(‘http://www.dataversity.net/’, data = {‘key’ : ‘value’})
See how easy it is to make requests. Let’s move on to passing parameters in URLs:
Passing parameters in URLs
Parameters in URLs can be passed in a formal way. Requests allow us to give these arguments as a dictionary of strings. params is the keyword to use in the arguments for that purpose.
See the following example to get a clear idea:
R_par = requests.get(‘http://www.dataversity.net’, params = {‘key0’ : ‘value0’ ,
‘key1’ : ‘value1’})
print(R_par.url)
print statement helps identify if the URL has been encoded correctly.
Response Content
Response of the server can be viewed completely as text:
R_Content = requests.get(‘http://www.dataversity.net’)
R_Content.text
The complete text will be decoded after getting it from the server and displayed as text.
Custom Headers
Custom headers can be added to requests. headers is the parameter which will have a dictionary passed by argument in order to specify the header.
R_head = requests.get(‘http://www.dataversity.net’, headers= {‘key’ : ‘value’})
In place of key and value, you can put your desired values throughout.
Conclusion
You were given a basic introduction of Python request module along with its working. Now, if you practice the above given examples on your own and add, eliminate and substitute things then you will get a better idea of its working. If you have made it here, congratulations because you have learned how to make basic requests to a server, passing parameters or arguments to the URLs, getting response content and showing it and passing custom headers. This will be very useful when you are trying to scrape webpages for information.
