Requests Library

Make HTTP requests in Python — call REST APIs, send data, handle authentication, and turn the entire internet into your data source.

"The internet is one giant API. With the requests library, every piece of data on the web — weather, prices, news, maps — is just a .get() away."

— Shurai

What is requests?

requests is Python’s most popular HTTP library. It lets you send web requests (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and handle the responses — without dealing with low-level networking:

terminal — install once

pip install requests

GET — Fetch Data from a URL

python — your first request

import requests

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

print(response.status_code)    # 200 = success
print(response.headers)        # dict of response headers
print(response.text)           # raw text body
print(response.json())         # parse JSON automatically → dict

Common HTTP status codes:

200OK — request succeeded, data returned 201Created — POST succeeded, resource created 400Bad Request — something wrong with your request 401Unauthorized — missing or invalid API key 404Not Found — endpoint doesn't exist 429Too Many Requests — rate limited, slow down 500Server Error — problem on the server's side

Query Parameters — Filtering API Results

python

# Pass params as a dict — requests builds the URL for you
params = {"q": "python", "sort": "stars", "per_page": 3}
resp   = requests.get("https://api.github.com/search/repositories",
                       params=params)

print(resp.url)
# https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=python&sort=stars&per_page=3

data = resp.json()
for repo in data["items"]:
    print(f"{repo['full_name']} — ⭐ {repo['stargazers_count']:,}")

POST — Sending Data

python

import requests

# POST with JSON body — creating a new resource
payload  = {"title": "Buy groceries", "completed": False}
response = requests.post("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos",
                          json=payload)

print(response.status_code)    # 201 — created!
print(response.json())         # {'id': 201, 'title': 'Buy groceries', ...}

Headers and Authentication

python

# API key in a header (most common auth method)
headers = {
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY",
    "Accept":         "application/json",
}
resp = requests.get("https://api.example.com/data", headers=headers)

# Always check before using the data
resp.raise_for_status()   # raises HTTPError if status >= 400
data = resp.json()

Real Example — Weather Checker

python — using Open-Meteo (free, no key needed)

import requests

def get_weather(city, lat, lon):
    """Fetch today's temperature for a city."""
    url    = "https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast"
    params = {"latitude": lat, "longitude": lon,
              "current_weather": True}

    try:
        resp = requests.get(url, params=params, timeout=5)
        resp.raise_for_status()
        weather = resp.json()["current_weather"]
        print(f"{city}: {weather['temperature']}°C, wind {weather['windspeed']} km/h")
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
        print(f"Error fetching weather for {city}: {e}")

get_weather("Mumbai",  19.08,  72.88)
get_weather("Delhi",   28.61,  77.23)
get_weather("Chennai", 13.08,  80.27)

Always use timeout= and handle exceptions

Without timeout=5, a slow server can hang your program forever. Always wrap requests in try/except for requests.exceptions.RequestException to handle network errors gracefully.

"Three lines of requests code can replace hours of manual data collection. Whenever you find yourself copying data from a website, ask: does this site have an API?"

— Shurai

🧠 Quiz — Q1

What does response.json() do?

🧠 Quiz — Q2

You get a 401 status code from an API. What does this mean?

🧠 Quiz — Q3

What is the advantage of passing params={"q": "python"} to requests.get() instead of writing the URL manually?

🧠 Quiz — Q4

Why should you always add timeout=5 to your requests calls?