How To Send Raw Data In Python Requests

In this tutorial, we will learn how to send raw data in Python using the popular library Requests. The Requests library simplifies the process of making HTTP requests and allows us to send data in various formats, including JSON, form data, and raw data.

Sending raw data is useful when you want to interact with APIs or other web services that require data to be sent in a specific format and directly control the content of the HTTP body.

Step 1: Install the Requests Library

To start, you will need to install the Requests library in your Python environment. The installation can be done through pip. Open your terminal and run the following command:

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pip install requests

This command will download and install the Requests library, allowing you to use it in your project.

Step 2: Import the Requests Library

Next, we need to import the library in our Python code. Add the following line to your Python file:

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import requests

Step 3: Sending Raw Data Using the POST Method

To send raw data using the POST method, you simply need to pass the raw data as the data parameter of the requests.post() function, along with the URL of the API or web service you want to send the data to.

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url = 'https://example.com/api/data'
raw_data = 'This is raw data'
 
response = requests.post(url, data=raw_data)

In this example, we are sending the string “This is raw data” as raw data to the specified URL. The response from the server will be stored in the response variable.

Step 4: Handling the Response

Once the request is sent, you can access various attributes of the response, such as the status code and the response body. To check if the request was successful, you can use the response.ok attribute and the response.status_code attribute. To get the response body, you can use the response.text attribute.

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if response.ok:
    print(f'Success! Status code: {response.status_code}')
    print(f'Response body: {response.text}')
else:
    print(f'Error! Status code: {response.status_code}')
    print(f'Response body: {response.text}')

This code will print the status code and the response body on success, or an error message on failure.

Full Code:

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import requests
 
url = 'https://example.com/api/data'
raw_data = 'This is raw data'
 
response = requests.post(url, data=raw_data)
 
if response.ok:
    print(f'Success! Status code: {response.status_code}')
    print(f'Response body: {response.text}')
else:
    print(f'Error! Status code: {response.status_code}')
    print(f'Response body: {response.text}')

Conclusion

This tutorial demonstrated how to send raw data using Python’s Requests library. By following these steps, you can easily integrate raw data sending in your Python applications when interacting with APIs or other web services.

Keep in mind that in some cases, you may need to include additional headers, such as Content-Type or Authorization, depending on the requirements of the API or web service you are using.