Requests library is one of the important aspects of Python for making HTTP requests to a specified URL. This article revolves around how one can make POST request to a specified URL using requests.post() method. Before checking out the POST method, let’s figure out what a POST request is –
POST Http Method
POST is a request method supported by HTTP used by the World Wide Web. By design, the POST request method requests that a web server accepts the data enclosed in the body of the request message, most likely for storing it. It is often used when uploading a file or when submitting a completed web form.
How to make POST request through Python Requests
Python’s requests module provides in-built method called post() for making a POST request to a specified URI.
Syntax –
requests.post(url, params={key: value}, args)
Example –
Let’s try making a request to httpbin’s APIs for example purposes.
Python3
import requests# Making a POST request# check status code for response received# success code - 200print(r)# print content of requestprint(r.json()) |
save this file as request.py and through terminal run,
python request.py
Output –
Advantages of using POST Method
- It is more secure than GET because user-entered information is never visible in the URL query string or in the server logs.
- There is a much larger limit on the amount of data that can be passed and one can send text data as well as binary data (uploading a file) using POST.
Disadvantages of using the POST Method
- Since the data sent by the POST method is not visible in the URL, so it is not possible to bookmark the page with specific query.
- POST requests are never cached
- POST requests do not remain in the browser history.
