Master Python’s Requests: Quick Guide to GET and POST API Calls

In Python we can use the requests module to call remote APIs.

1. Install the requests module

pip install requests

2. Use requests to make GET requests

GET requests are performed with requests.get(), which commonly takes url, params, and headers arguments.

url : the remote API endpoint

params : query parameters

headers : request headers

A simple GET example:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import requests
import ast
# API endpoint
url = 'XXX'
# query parameters
data = {'type':'0'}
# headers
headers = {
  'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
  'Authorization': 'Bearer XXX'
}
r = requests.get(url, params=data, headers=headers)
print(r.status_code)
content = r.text
content_list = ast.literal_eval(content)
print(content_list)
print(r.json())

This demonstrates how to perform a GET request and process the response.

3. Use requests to make POST requests

POST requests use requests.post(), typically with url, data, and headers arguments.

url : the remote API endpoint

data : form data to send

headers : request headers

A simple POST example:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import requests
import ast
url = 'XXX'
headers = {
  'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
  'Authorization': 'Bearer XXX'
}
data = {
  'nickname': '111',
  'gender': 1,
  'city': 'ce',
  'avatar': '111'
}
r = requests.post(url, data=data, headers=headers)
print(r.status_code)
content = r.text
content_list = ast.literal_eval(content)
print(content_list)
print(r.json())

This shows how to send a POST request and handle the JSON response.