:mod:`!http.client` --- HTTP protocol client
.. module:: http.client :synopsis: HTTP and HTTPS protocol client (requires sockets).
Source code: :source:`Lib/http/client.py`
.. index:: pair: HTTP; protocol single: HTTP; http.client (standard module)
.. index:: pair: module; urllib.request
This module defines classes that implement the client side of the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. It is normally not used directly --- the module :mod:`urllib.request` uses it to handle URLs that use HTTP and HTTPS.
.. seealso::
The `Requests package <https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>`_
is recommended for a higher-level HTTP client interface.
Note
HTTPS support is only available if Python was compiled with SSL support (through the :mod:`ssl` module).
The module provides the following classes:
Class whose instances are returned upon successful connection. Not instantiated directly by user.
.. versionchanged:: 3.4 The *strict* parameter was removed. HTTP 0.9 style "Simple Responses" are no longer supported.
This module provides the following function:
.. function:: parse_headers(fp)
Parse the headers from a file pointer *fp* representing a HTTP
request/response. The file has to be a :class:`~io.BufferedIOBase` reader
(i.e. not text) and must provide a valid :rfc:`2822` style header.
This function returns an instance of :class:`http.client.HTTPMessage`
that holds the header fields, but no payload
(the same as :attr:`HTTPResponse.msg`
and :attr:`http.server.BaseHTTPRequestHandler.headers`).
After returning, the file pointer *fp* is ready to read the HTTP body.
.. note::
:meth:`parse_headers` does not parse the start-line of a HTTP message;
it only parses the ``Name: value`` lines. The file has to be ready to
read these field lines, so the first line should already be consumed
before calling the function.
The following exceptions are raised as appropriate:
.. exception:: HTTPException The base class of the other exceptions in this module. It is a subclass of :exc:`Exception`.
.. exception:: NotConnected A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`.
.. exception:: InvalidURL A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`, raised if a port is given and is either non-numeric or empty.
.. exception:: UnknownProtocol A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`.
.. exception:: UnknownTransferEncoding A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`.
.. exception:: UnimplementedFileMode A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`.
.. exception:: IncompleteRead A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`.
.. exception:: ImproperConnectionState A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`.
.. exception:: CannotSendRequest A subclass of :exc:`ImproperConnectionState`.
.. exception:: CannotSendHeader A subclass of :exc:`ImproperConnectionState`.
.. exception:: ResponseNotReady A subclass of :exc:`ImproperConnectionState`.
.. exception:: BadStatusLine A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`. Raised if a server responds with a HTTP status code that we don't understand.
.. exception:: LineTooLong A subclass of :exc:`HTTPException`. Raised if an excessively long line is received in the HTTP protocol from the server.
.. exception:: RemoteDisconnected
A subclass of :exc:`ConnectionResetError` and :exc:`BadStatusLine`. Raised
by :meth:`HTTPConnection.getresponse` when the attempt to read the response
results in no data read from the connection, indicating that the remote end
has closed the connection.
.. versionadded:: 3.5
Previously, :exc:`BadStatusLine`\ ``('')`` was raised.
The constants defined in this module are:
.. data:: HTTP_PORT The default port for the HTTP protocol (always ``80``).
.. data:: HTTPS_PORT The default port for the HTTPS protocol (always ``443``).
.. data:: responses This dictionary maps the HTTP 1.1 status codes to the W3C names. Example: ``http.client.responses[http.client.NOT_FOUND]`` is ``'Not Found'``.
See :ref:`http-status-codes` for a list of HTTP status codes that are available in this module as constants.
:class:`HTTPConnection` instances have the following methods:
.. method:: HTTPConnection.request(method, url, body=None, headers={}, *, \
encode_chunked=False)
This will send a request to the server using the HTTP request
method *method* and the request URI *url*. The provided *url* must be
an absolute path to conform with :rfc:`RFC 2616 §5.1.2 <2616#section-5.1.2>`
(unless connecting to an HTTP proxy server or using the ``OPTIONS`` or
``CONNECT`` methods).
If *body* is specified, the specified data is sent after the headers are
finished. It may be a :class:`str`, a :term:`bytes-like object`, an
open :term:`file object`, or an iterable of :class:`bytes`. If *body*
is a string, it is encoded as ISO-8859-1, the default for HTTP. If it
is a bytes-like object, the bytes are sent as is. If it is a :term:`file
object`, the contents of the file is sent; this file object should
support at least the ``read()`` method. If the file object is an
instance of :class:`io.TextIOBase`, the data returned by the ``read()``
method will be encoded as ISO-8859-1, otherwise the data returned by
``read()`` is sent as is. If *body* is an iterable, the elements of the
iterable are sent as is until the iterable is exhausted.
The *headers* argument should be a mapping of extra HTTP headers to send
with the request. A :rfc:`Host header <2616#section-14.23>`
must be provided to conform with :rfc:`RFC 2616 §5.1.2 <2616#section-5.1.2>`
(unless connecting to an HTTP proxy server or using the ``OPTIONS`` or
``CONNECT`` methods).
If *headers* contains neither Content-Length nor Transfer-Encoding,
but there is a request body, one of those
header fields will be added automatically. If
*body* is ``None``, the Content-Length header is set to ``0`` for
methods that expect a body (``PUT``, ``POST``, and ``PATCH``). If
*body* is a string or a bytes-like object that is not also a
:term:`file <file object>`, the Content-Length header is
set to its length. Any other type of *body* (files
and iterables in general) will be chunk-encoded, and the
Transfer-Encoding header will automatically be set instead of
Content-Length.
The *encode_chunked* argument is only relevant if Transfer-Encoding is
specified in *headers*. If *encode_chunked* is ``False``, the
HTTPConnection object assumes that all encoding is handled by the
calling code. If it is ``True``, the body will be chunk-encoded.
For example, to perform a ``GET`` request to ``https://docs.python.org/3/``::
>>> import http.client
>>> host = "docs.python.org"
>>> conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection(host)
>>> conn.request("GET", "/3/", headers={"Host": host})
>>> response = conn.getresponse()
>>> print(response.status, response.reason)
200 OK
.. note::
Chunked transfer encoding has been added to the HTTP protocol
version 1.1. Unless the HTTP server is known to handle HTTP 1.1,
the caller must either specify the Content-Length, or must pass a
:class:`str` or bytes-like object that is not also a file as the
body representation.
.. versionchanged:: 3.2
*body* can now be an iterable.
.. versionchanged:: 3.6
If neither Content-Length nor Transfer-Encoding are set in
*headers*, file and iterable *body* objects are now chunk-encoded.
The *encode_chunked* argument was added.
No attempt is made to determine the Content-Length for file
objects.
.. method:: HTTPConnection.getresponse()
Should be called after a request is sent to get the response from the server.
Returns an :class:`HTTPResponse` instance.
.. note::
Note that you must have read the whole response before you can send a new
request to the server.
.. versionchanged:: 3.5
If a :exc:`ConnectionError` or subclass is raised, the
:class:`HTTPConnection` object will be ready to reconnect when
a new request is sent.
.. method:: HTTPConnection.set_debuglevel(level) Set the debugging level. The default debug level is ``0``, meaning no debugging output is printed. Any value greater than ``0`` will cause all currently defined debug output to be printed to stdout. The ``debuglevel`` is passed to any new :class:`HTTPResponse` objects that are created. .. versionadded:: 3.1
.. method:: HTTPConnection.set_tunnel(host, port=None, headers=None)
Set the host and the port for HTTP Connect Tunnelling. This allows running
the connection through a proxy server.
The *host* and *port* arguments specify the endpoint of the tunneled connection
(i.e. the address included in the CONNECT request, *not* the address of the
proxy server).
The *headers* argument should be a mapping of extra HTTP headers to send with
the CONNECT request.
As HTTP/1.1 is used for HTTP CONNECT tunnelling request, `as per the RFC
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-4.3.6>`_, a HTTP ``Host:``
header must be provided, matching the authority-form of the request target
provided as the destination for the CONNECT request. If a HTTP ``Host:``
header is not provided via the headers argument, one is generated and
transmitted automatically.
For example, to tunnel through a HTTPS proxy server running locally on port
8080, we would pass the address of the proxy to the :class:`HTTPSConnection`
constructor, and the address of the host that we eventually want to reach to
the :meth:`~HTTPConnection.set_tunnel` method::
>>> import http.client
>>> conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("localhost", 8080)
>>> conn.set_tunnel("www.python.org")
>>> conn.request("HEAD","/index.html")
.. versionadded:: 3.2
.. versionchanged:: 3.12
HTTP CONNECT tunnelling requests use protocol HTTP/1.1, upgraded from
protocol HTTP/1.0. ``Host:`` HTTP headers are mandatory for HTTP/1.1, so
one will be automatically generated and transmitted if not provided in
the headers argument.
.. method:: HTTPConnection.get_proxy_response_headers() Returns a dictionary with the headers of the response received from the proxy server to the CONNECT request. If the CONNECT request was not sent, the method returns ``None``. .. versionadded:: 3.12
.. method:: HTTPConnection.connect() Connect to the server specified when the object was created. By default, this is called automatically when making a request if the client does not already have a connection. .. audit-event:: http.client.connect self,host,port http.client.HTTPConnection.connect
.. method:: HTTPConnection.close() Close the connection to the server.
.. attribute:: HTTPConnection.blocksize Buffer size in bytes for sending a file-like message body. .. versionadded:: 3.7
As an alternative to using the :meth:`~HTTPConnection.request` method described above, you can also send your request step by step, by using the four functions below.
.. method:: HTTPConnection.putrequest(method, url, skip_host=False, \
skip_accept_encoding=False)
This should be the first call after the connection to the server has been
made. It sends a line to the server consisting of the *method* string,
the *url* string, and the HTTP version (``HTTP/1.1``). To disable automatic
sending of ``Host:`` or ``Accept-Encoding:`` headers (for example to accept
additional content encodings), specify *skip_host* or *skip_accept_encoding*
with non-False values.
.. method:: HTTPConnection.putheader(header, argument[, ...]) Send an :rfc:`822`\ -style header to the server. It sends a line to the server consisting of the header, a colon and a space, and the first argument. If more arguments are given, continuation lines are sent, each consisting of a tab and an argument.
.. method:: HTTPConnection.endheaders(message_body=None, *, encode_chunked=False)
Send a blank line to the server, signalling the end of the headers. The
optional *message_body* argument can be used to pass a message body
associated with the request.
If *encode_chunked* is ``True``, the result of each iteration of
*message_body* will be chunk-encoded as specified in :rfc:`7230`,
Section 3.3.1. How the data is encoded is dependent on the type of
*message_body*. If *message_body* implements the :ref:`buffer interface
<bufferobjects>` the encoding will result in a single chunk.
If *message_body* is a :class:`collections.abc.Iterable`, each iteration
of *message_body* will result in a chunk. If *message_body* is a
:term:`file object`, each call to ``.read()`` will result in a chunk.
The method automatically signals the end of the chunk-encoded data
immediately after *message_body*.
.. note:: Due to the chunked encoding specification, empty chunks
yielded by an iterator body will be ignored by the chunk-encoder.
This is to avoid premature termination of the read of the request by
the target server due to malformed encoding.
.. versionchanged:: 3.6
Added chunked encoding support and the *encode_chunked* parameter.
.. method:: HTTPConnection.send(data) Send data to the server. This should be used directly only after the :meth:`endheaders` method has been called and before :meth:`getresponse` is called. .. audit-event:: http.client.send self,data http.client.HTTPConnection.send
An :class:`HTTPResponse` instance wraps the HTTP response from the server. It provides access to the request headers and the entity body. The response is an iterable object and can be used in a with statement.
.. versionchanged:: 3.5 The :class:`io.BufferedIOBase` interface is now implemented and all of its reader operations are supported.
.. method:: HTTPResponse.read([amt]) Reads and returns the response body, or up to the next *amt* bytes.
.. method:: HTTPResponse.readinto(b) Reads up to the next len(b) bytes of the response body into the buffer *b*. Returns the number of bytes read. .. versionadded:: 3.3
.. method:: HTTPResponse.getheader(name, default=None) Return the value of the header *name*, or *default* if there is no header matching *name*. If there is more than one header with the name *name*, return all of the values joined by ', '. If *default* is any iterable other than a single string, its elements are similarly returned joined by commas.
.. method:: HTTPResponse.getheaders() Return a list of (header, value) tuples.
.. method:: HTTPResponse.fileno() Return the ``fileno`` of the underlying socket.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.msg A :class:`http.client.HTTPMessage` instance containing the response headers. :class:`http.client.HTTPMessage` is a subclass of :class:`email.message.Message`.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.version HTTP protocol version used by server. 10 for HTTP/1.0, 11 for HTTP/1.1.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.url URL of the resource retrieved, commonly used to determine if a redirect was followed.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.headers Headers of the response in the form of an :class:`email.message.EmailMessage` instance.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.status Status code returned by server.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.reason Reason phrase returned by server.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.debuglevel A debugging hook. If :attr:`debuglevel` is greater than zero, messages will be printed to stdout as the response is read and parsed.
.. attribute:: HTTPResponse.closed Is ``True`` if the stream is closed.
.. method:: HTTPResponse.geturl()
.. deprecated:: 3.9
Deprecated in favor of :attr:`~HTTPResponse.url`.
.. method:: HTTPResponse.info()
.. deprecated:: 3.9
Deprecated in favor of :attr:`~HTTPResponse.headers`.
.. method:: HTTPResponse.getcode()
.. deprecated:: 3.9
Deprecated in favor of :attr:`~HTTPResponse.status`.
Here is an example session that uses the GET method:
>>> import http.client
>>> conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("www.python.org")
>>> conn.request("GET", "/")
>>> r1 = conn.getresponse()
>>> print(r1.status, r1.reason)
200 OK
>>> data1 = r1.read() # This will return entire content.
>>> # The following example demonstrates reading data in chunks.
>>> conn.request("GET", "/")
>>> r1 = conn.getresponse()
>>> while chunk := r1.read(200):
... print(repr(chunk))
b'<!doctype html>\n<!--[if"...
...
>>> # Example of an invalid request
>>> conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("docs.python.org")
>>> conn.request("GET", "/parrot.spam")
>>> r2 = conn.getresponse()
>>> print(r2.status, r2.reason)
404 Not Found
>>> data2 = r2.read()
>>> conn.close()
Here is an example session that uses the HEAD method. Note that the
HEAD method never returns any data.
>>> import http.client
>>> conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("www.python.org")
>>> conn.request("HEAD", "/")
>>> res = conn.getresponse()
>>> print(res.status, res.reason)
200 OK
>>> data = res.read()
>>> print(len(data))
0
>>> data == b''
True
Here is an example session that uses the POST method:
>>> import http.client, urllib.parse
>>> params = urllib.parse.urlencode({'@number': 12524, '@type': 'issue', '@action': 'show'})
>>> headers = {"Content-type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
... "Accept": "text/plain"}
>>> conn = http.client.HTTPConnection("bugs.python.org")
>>> conn.request("POST", "", params, headers)
>>> response = conn.getresponse()
>>> print(response.status, response.reason)
302 Found
>>> data = response.read()
>>> data
b'Redirecting to <a href="https://bugs.python.org/issue12524">https://bugs.python.org/issue12524</a>'
>>> conn.close()
Client side HTTP PUT requests are very similar to POST requests. The
difference lies only on the server side where HTTP servers will allow resources to
be created via PUT requests. It should be noted that custom HTTP methods
are also handled in :class:`urllib.request.Request` by setting the appropriate
method attribute. Here is an example session that uses the PUT method:
>>> # This creates an HTTP request
>>> # with the content of BODY as the enclosed representation
>>> # for the resource http://localhost:8080/file
...
>>> import http.client
>>> BODY = "***filecontents***"
>>> conn = http.client.HTTPConnection("localhost", 8080)
>>> conn.request("PUT", "/file", BODY)
>>> response = conn.getresponse()
>>> print(response.status, response.reason)
200, OK
An :class:`http.client.HTTPMessage` instance holds the headers from an HTTP response. It is implemented using the :class:`email.message.Message` class.