Python requests - print entire http request (raw)?
Matthew Martinez 
While using the requests module, is there any way to print the raw HTTP request?
I don't want just the headers, I want the request line, headers, and content printout. Is it possible to see what ultimately is constructed from HTTP request?
49 Answers
Since v1.2.3 Requests added the PreparedRequest object. As per the documentation "it contains the exact bytes that will be sent to the server".
One can use this to pretty print a request, like so:
import requests
req = requests.Request('POST',')
prepared = req.prepare()
def pretty_print_POST(req): """ At this point it is completely built and ready to be fired; it is "prepared". However pay attention at the formatting used in this function because it is programmed to be pretty printed and may differ from the actual request. """ print('{}\n{}\r\n{}\r\n\r\n{}'.format( '-----------START-----------', req.method + ' ' + req.url, '\r\n'.join('{}: {}'.format(k, v) for k, v in req.headers.items()), req.body, ))
pretty_print_POST(prepared)which produces:
-----------START-----------
POST
Content-Length: 7
X-Custom: Test
a=1&b=2Then you can send the actual request with this:
s = requests.Session()
s.send(prepared)These links are to the latest documentation available, so they might change in content:Advanced - Prepared requests and API - Lower level classes
10import requests
response = requests.post(' data={'key1':'value1'})
print(response.request.url)
print(response.request.body)
print(response.request.headers)Response objects have a .request property which is the original PreparedRequest object that was sent.
An even better idea is to use the requests_toolbelt library, which can dump out both requests and responses as strings for you to print to the console. It handles all the tricky cases with files and encodings which the above solution does not handle well.
It's as easy as this:
import requests
from requests_toolbelt.utils import dump
resp = requests.get(')
data = dump.dump_all(resp)
print(data.decode('utf-8'))Source:
You can simply install it by typing:
pip install requests_toolbeltNote: this answer is outdated. Newer versions of requests support getting the request content directly, as AntonioHerraizS's answer documents.
It's not possible to get the true raw content of the request out of requests, since it only deals with higher level objects, such as headers and method type. requests uses urllib3 to send requests, but urllib3 also doesn't deal with raw data - it uses httplib. Here's a representative stack trace of a request:
-> r= requests.get("") /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/api.py(55)get()
-> return request('get', url, **kwargs) /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/api.py(44)request()
-> return session.request(method=method, url=url, **kwargs) /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py(382)request()
-> resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs) /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py(485)send()
-> r = adapter.send(request, **kwargs) /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/adapters.py(324)send()
-> timeout=timeout /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/packages/urllib3/connectionpool.py(478)urlopen()
-> body=body, headers=headers) /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/packages/urllib3/connectionpool.py(285)_make_request()
-> conn.request(method, url, **httplib_request_kw) /usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py(958)request()
-> self._send_request(method, url, body, headers)Inside the httplib machinery, we can see HTTPConnection._send_request indirectly uses HTTPConnection._send_output, which finally creates the raw request and body (if it exists), and uses HTTPConnection.send to send them separately. send finally reaches the socket.
Since there's no hooks for doing what you want, as a last resort you can monkey patch httplib to get the content. It's a fragile solution, and you may need to adapt it if httplib is changed. If you intend to distribute software using this solution, you may want to consider packaging httplib instead of using the system's, which is easy, since it's a pure python module.
Alas, without further ado, the solution:
import requests
import httplib
def patch_send(): old_send= httplib.HTTPConnection.send def new_send( self, data ): print data return old_send(self, data) #return is not necessary, but never hurts, in case the library is changed httplib.HTTPConnection.send= new_send
patch_send()
requests.get("")which yields the output:
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host:
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, compress
Accept: */*
User-Agent: python-requests/2.1.0 CPython/2.7.3 Linux/3.2.0-23-generic-paerequests supports so called event hooks (as of 2.23 there's actually only response hook). The hook can be used on a request to print full request-response pair's data, including effective URL, headers and bodies, like:
import textwrap
import requests
def print_roundtrip(response, *args, **kwargs): format_headers = lambda d: '\n'.join(f'{k}: {v}' for k, v in d.items()) print(textwrap.dedent(''' ---------------- request ---------------- {req.method} {req.url} {reqhdrs} {req.body} ---------------- response ---------------- {res.status_code} {res.reason} {res.url} {reshdrs} {res.text} ''').format( req=response.request, res=response, reqhdrs=format_headers(response.request.headers), reshdrs=format_headers(response.headers), ))
requests.get(' hooks={'response': print_roundtrip})Running it prints:
---------------- request ----------------
GET
User-Agent: python-requests/2.23.0
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept: */*
Connection: keep-alive
None
---------------- response ----------------
200 OK
Date: Thu, 14 May 2020 17:16:13 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 9593
Connection: keep-alive
Server: gunicorn/19.9.0
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
...
</html>You may want to change res.text to res.content if the response is binary.
Here is a code, which makes the same, but with response headers:
import socket
def patch_requests(): old_readline = socket._fileobject.readline if not hasattr(old_readline, 'patched'): def new_readline(self, size=-1): res = old_readline(self, size) print res, return res new_readline.patched = True socket._fileobject.readline = new_readline
patch_requests()I spent a lot of time searching for this, so I'm leaving it here, if someone needs.
0A fork of @AntonioHerraizS answer (HTTP version missing as stated in comments)
Use this code to get a string representing the raw HTTP packet without sending it:
import requests
def get_raw_request(request): request = request.prepare() if isinstance(request, requests.Request) else request headers = '\r\n'.join(f'{k}: {v}' for k, v in request.headers.items()) body = '' if request.body is None else request.body.decode() if isinstance(request.body, bytes) else request.body return f'{request.method} {request.path_url} HTTP/1.1\r\n{headers}\r\n\r\n{body}'
headers = {'User-Agent': 'Test'}
request = requests.Request('POST', ' headers=headers, json={"hello": "world"})
raw_request = get_raw_request(request)
print(raw_request)Result:
POST / HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Test
Content-Length: 18
Content-Type: application/json
{"hello": "world"}đź’ˇ Can also print the request in the response object
r = requests.get(') raw_request = get_raw_request(r.request) print(raw_request)
I use the following function to format requests. It's like @AntonioHerraizS except it will pretty-print JSON objects in the body as well, and it labels all parts of the request.
format_json = functools.partial(json.dumps, indent=2, sort_keys=True)
indent = functools.partial(textwrap.indent, prefix=' ')
def format_prepared_request(req): """Pretty-format 'requests.PreparedRequest' Example: res = requests.post(...) print(format_prepared_request(res.request)) req = requests.Request(...) req = req.prepare() print(format_prepared_request(res.request)) """ headers = '\n'.join(f'{k}: {v}' for k, v in req.headers.items()) content_type = req.headers.get('Content-Type', '') if 'application/json' in content_type: try: body = format_json(json.loads(req.body)) except json.JSONDecodeError: body = req.body else: body = req.body s = textwrap.dedent(""" REQUEST ======= endpoint: {method} {url} headers: {headers} body: {body} ======= """).strip() s = s.format( method=req.method, url=req.url, headers=indent(headers), body=indent(body), ) return sAnd I have a similar function to format the response:
def format_response(resp): """Pretty-format 'requests.Response'""" headers = '\n'.join(f'{k}: {v}' for k, v in resp.headers.items()) content_type = resp.headers.get('Content-Type', '') if 'application/json' in content_type: try: body = format_json(resp.json()) except json.JSONDecodeError: body = resp.text else: body = resp.text s = textwrap.dedent(""" RESPONSE ======== status_code: {status_code} headers: {headers} body: {body} ======== """).strip() s = s.format( status_code=resp.status_code, headers=indent(headers), body=indent(body), ) return stest_print.py content:
import logging
import pytest
import requests
from requests_toolbelt.utils import dump
def print_raw_http(response): data = dump.dump_all(response, request_prefix=b'', response_prefix=b'') return '\n' * 2 + data.decode('utf-8')
@pytest.fixture
def logger(): log = logging.getLogger() log.addHandler(logging.StreamHandler()) log.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) return log
def test_print_response(logger): session = requests.Session() response = session.get(') assert response.status_code == 300, logger.warning(print_raw_http(response))hello.py content:
from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)
@app.route('/')
def hello_world(): return 'Hello, World!'Run:
$ python -m flask hello.py $ python -m pytest test_print.pyStdout:
------------------------------ Captured log call ------------------------------
DEBUG urllib3.connectionpool:connectionpool.py:225 Starting new HTTP connection (1): 127.0.0.1:5000
DEBUG urllib3.connectionpool:connectionpool.py:437 "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 13
WARNING root:test_print_raw_response.py:25
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 127.0.0.1:5000
User-Agent: python-requests/2.23.0
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept: */*
Connection: keep-alive
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 13
Server: Werkzeug/1.0.1 Python/3.6.8
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2020 21:00:54 GMT
Hello, World!
