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# HTTP Web Services

> ❝ A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow. ❞
> — Charlotte Brontë

## Diving In

HTTP web services are programmatic ways of sending and receiving data from remote servers using nothing but the operations of HTTP. If you want to get data from the server, use HTTP `GET`; if you want to send new data to the server, use HTTP `POST`. Some more advanced HTTP web service APIs also define ways of creating, modifying, and deleting data, using HTTP `PUT` and HTTP `DELETE`. In other words, the “verbs” built into the HTTP protocol (`GET`, `POST`, `PUT`, and `DELETE`) can map directly to application-level operations for retrieving, creating, modifying, and deleting data.

The main advantage of this approach is simplicity, and its simplicity has proven popular. Data — usually XML data — can be built and stored statically, or generated dynamically by a server-side script, and all major programming languages (including Python, of course!) include an HTTP library for downloading it. Debugging is also easier; because each resource in an HTTP web service has a unique address (in the form of a URL), you can load it in your web browser and immediately see the raw data.

Examples of HTTP web services:

- Google Data APIs allow you to interact with a wide variety of Google services, including Blogger and YouTube.
- Flickr Services allow you to upload and download photos from Flickr.
- Twitter API allows you to publish status updates on Twitter.
- …and many more

Python 3 comes with two different libraries for interacting with HTTP web services:

- `http.client` is a low-level library that implements RFC 2616, the HTTP protocol.
- `urllib.request` is an abstraction layer built on top of `http.client`. It provides a standard API for accessing both HTTP and FTP servers, automatically follows HTTP redirects, and handles some common forms of HTTP authentication.

So which one should you use? Neither of them. Instead, you should use `httplib2`, an open source third-party library that implements HTTP more fully than `http.client` but provides a better abstraction than `urllib.request`.

To understand why `httplib2` is the right choice, you first need to understand HTTP.

⁂

## Features of HTTP

There are five important features which all HTTP clients should support.

### Caching

The most important thing to understand about any type of web service is that network access is incredibly expensive. I don’t mean “dollars and cents” expensive (although bandwidth ain’t free). I mean that it takes an extraordinary long time to open a connection, send a request, and retrieve a response from a remote server. Even on the fastest broadband connection, latency (the time it takes to send a request and start retrieving data in a response) can still be higher than you anticipated. A router misbehaves, a packet is dropped, an intermediate proxy is under attack — there’s never a dull moment on the public internet, and there may be nothing you can do about it.

HTTP is designed with caching in mind. There is an entire class of devices (called “caching proxies”) whose only job is to sit between you and the rest of the world and minimize network access. Your company or ISP almost certainly maintains caching proxies, even if you’re unaware of them. They work because caching built into the HTTP protocol.

Here’s a concrete example of how caching works. You visit `diveintomark.org` in your browser. That page includes a background image, `wearehugh.com/m.jpg`. When your browser downloads that image, the server includes the following HTTP headers:

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 17:14:04 GMT
    Server: Apache
    Last-Modified: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:28:16 GMT
    ETag: "3075-ddc8d800"
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Content-Length: 12405
    Cache-Control: max-age=31536000, public
    Expires: Mon, 31 May 2010 17:14:04 GMT
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: image/jpeg

The `Cache-Control` and `Expires` headers tell your browser (and any caching proxies between you and the server) that this image can be cached for up to a year. A year! And if, in the next year, you visit another page which also includes a link to this image, your browser will load the image from its cache without generating any network activity whatsoever.

But wait, it gets better. Let’s say your browser purges the image from your local cache for some reason. Maybe it ran out of disk space; maybe you manually cleared the cache. Whatever. But the HTTP headers said that this data could be cached by public caching proxies (by virtue of that `public` keyword in the `Cache-Control` header). Caching proxies are designed to have tons of storage space, probably far more than your local browser has allocated.

If your company or ISP maintain a caching proxy, the proxy may still have the image cached. When you visit `diveintomark.org` again, your browser will look in its local cache for the image, but it won’t find it, so it will make a network request to try to download it from the remote server. But if the caching proxy still has a copy of the image, it will intercept that request and serve the image from its cache. That means that your request will never reach the remote server; in fact, it will never leave your company’s network. That makes for a faster download (fewer network hops) and saves your company money (less data being downloaded from the outside world).

HTTP caching only works when everybody does their part. On one side, servers need to send the correct headers in their response. On the other side, clients need to understand and respect those headers before they request the same data twice. The proxies in the middle are not a panacea; they can only be as smart as the servers and clients allow them to be.

Python’s HTTP libraries do not support caching, but `httplib2` does.

### Last-Modified Checking

Some data never changes, while other data changes all the time. In between, there is a vast field of data that might have changed, but hasn’t. CNN.com’s feed is updated every few minutes, but my weblog’s feed may not change for days or weeks at a time. In the latter case, I don’t want to tell clients to cache my feed for weeks at a time, because then when I do actually post something, people may not read it for weeks (because they’re respecting my cache headers which said “don’t bother checking this feed for weeks”). On the other hand, I don’t want clients downloading my entire feed once an hour if it hasn’t changed!

HTTP has a solution to this, too. When you request data for the first time, the server can send back a `Last-Modified` header. This is exactly what it sounds like: the date that the data was changed. That background image referenced from `diveintomark.org` included a `Last-Modified` header.

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 17:14:04 GMT
    Server: Apache
    Last-Modified: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:28:16 GMT
    ETag: "3075-ddc8d800"
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Content-Length: 12405
    Cache-Control: max-age=31536000, public
    Expires: Mon, 31 May 2010 17:14:04 GMT
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: image/jpeg

When you request the same data a second (or third or fourth) time, you can send an `If-Modified-Since` header with your request, with the date you got back from the server last time. If the data hasn’t changed since then, the server sends back a special HTTP `304` status code, which means “this data hasn’t changed since the last time you asked for it.” You can test this on the command line, using curl:

    you@localhost:~$ curl -I -H "If-Modified-Since: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:28:16 GMT" http://wearehugh.com/m.jpg
    HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
    Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 18:04:39 GMT
    Server: Apache
    Connection: close
    ETag: "3075-ddc8d800"
    Expires: Mon, 31 May 2010 18:04:39 GMT
    Cache-Control: max-age=31536000, public

Why is this an improvement? Because when the server sends a `304`, it doesn’t re-send the data. All you get is the status code. Even after your cached copy has expired, last-modified checking ensures that you won’t download the same data twice if it hasn’t changed. (As an extra bonus, this `304` response also includes caching headers. Proxies will keep a copy of data even after it officially “expires,” in the hopes that the data hasn’t really changed and the next request responds with a `304` status code and updated cache information.)

Python’s HTTP libraries do not support last-modified date checking, but `httplib2` does.

### ETags

ETags are an alternate way to accomplish the same thing as the last-modified checking. With Etags, the server sends a hash code in an `ETag` header along with the data you requested. (Exactly how this hash is determined is entirely up to the server. The only requirement is that it changes when the data changes.) That background image referenced from `diveintomark.org` had an `ETag` header.

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 17:14:04 GMT
    Server: Apache
    Last-Modified: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:28:16 GMT
    ETag: "3075-ddc8d800"
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Content-Length: 12405
    Cache-Control: max-age=31536000, public
    Expires: Mon, 31 May 2010 17:14:04 GMT
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: image/jpeg

The second time you request the same data, you include the ETag hash in an `If-None-Match` header of your request. If the data hasn’t changed, the server will send you back a `304` status code. As with the last-modified date checking, the server sends back only the `304` status code; it doesn’t send you the same data a second time. By including the ETag hash in your second request, you’re telling the server that there’s no need to re-send the same data if it still matches this hash, since you still have the data from the last time.

Again with the `curl`:

    you@localhost:~$ curl -I -H "If-None-Match: \"3075-ddc8d800\"" http://wearehugh.com/m.jpg  ①
    HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
    Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 18:04:39 GMT
    Server: Apache
    Connection: close
    ETag: "3075-ddc8d800"
    Expires: Mon, 31 May 2010 18:04:39 GMT
    Cache-Control: max-age=31536000, public

1. ETags are commonly enclosed in quotation marks, but the quotation marks are part of the value. They are not delimiters; the only delimiter in the `ETag` header is the colon between `ETag` and `"3075-ddc8d800"`. That means you need to send the quotation marks back to the server in the `If-None-Match` header.

Python’s HTTP libraries do not support ETags, but `httplib2` does.

### Compression

When you talk about HTTP web services, you’re almost always talking about moving text-based data back and forth over the wire. Maybe it’s XML, maybe it’s JSON, maybe it’s just plain text. Regardless of the format, text compresses well. The example feed in the XML chapter is 3070 bytes uncompressed, but would be 941 bytes after gzip compression. That’s just 30% of the original size!

HTTP supports several compression algorithms. The two most common types are gzip and deflate. When you request a resource over HTTP, you can ask the server to send it in compressed format. You include an `Accept-encoding` header in your request that lists which compression algorithms you support. If the server supports any of the same algorithms, it will send you back compressed data (with a `Content-encoding` header that tells you which algorithm it used). Then it’s up to you to decompress the data.

Python’s HTTP libraries do not support compression, but `httplib2` does.

### Redirects

Cool URIs don’t change, but many URIs are seriously uncool. Web sites get reorganized, pages move to new addresses. Even web services can reorganize. A syndicated feed at `http://example.com/index.xml` might be moved to `http://example.com/xml/atom.xml`. Or an entire domain might move, as an organization expands and reorganizes; `http://www.example.com/index.xml` becomes `http://server-farm-1.example.com/index.xml`.

Every time you request any kind of resource from an HTTP server, the server includes a status code in its response. Status code `200` means “everything’s normal, here’s the page you asked for”. Status code `404` means “page not found”. (You’ve probably seen 404 errors while browsing the web.) Status codes in the 300’s indicate some form of redirection.

HTTP has several different ways of signifying that a resource has moved. The two most common techiques are status codes `302` and `301`. Status code `302` is a temporary redirect; it means “oops, that got moved over here temporarily” (and then gives the temporary address in a `Location` header). Status code `301` is a permanent redirect; it means “oops, that got moved permanently” (and then gives the new address in a `Location` header). If you get a `302` status code and a new address, the HTTP specification says you should use the new address to get what you asked for, but the next time you want to access the same resource, you should retry the old address. But if you get a `301` status code and a new address, you’re supposed to use the new address from then on.

The `urllib.request` module automatically “follow” redirects when it receives the appropriate status code from the HTTP server, but it doesn’t tell you that it did so. You’ll end up getting data you asked for, but you’ll never know that the underlying library “helpfully” followed a redirect for you. So you’ll continue pounding away at the old address, and each time you’ll get redirected to the new address, and each time the `urllib.request` module will “helpfully” follow the redirect. In other words, it treats permanent redirects the same as temporary redirects. That means two round trips instead of one, which is bad for the server and bad for you.

`httplib2` handles permanent redirects for you. Not only will it tell you that a permanent redirect occurred, it will keep track of them locally and automatically rewrite redirected URLs before requesting them.

⁂

## How Not To Fetch Data Over HTTP

Let’s say you want to download a resource over HTTP, such as an Atom feed. Being a feed, you’re not just going to download it once; you’re going to download it over and over again. (Most feed readers will check for changes once an hour.) Let’s do it the quick-and-dirty way first, and then see how you can do better.

    >>> import urllib.request
    >>> data = urllib.request.urlopen('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml').read()  ①
    >>> print(data)
    <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
    <feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xml:lang='en'>
      <title>dive into mark</title>
      <subtitle>currently between addictions</subtitle>
      <id>tag:diveintomark.org,2001-07-29:/</id>
      <updated>2009-03-27T21:56:07Z</updated>
      <link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://diveintomark.org/'/>
      …

1. Downloading anything over HTTP is incredibly easy in Python; in fact, it’s a one-liner. The `urllib.request` module has a handy `urlopen()` function that takes the address of the page you want, and returns a file-like object that you can just `read()` from to get the full contents of the page. It just can’t get any easier.

So what’s wrong with this? For a quick one-off during testing or development, there’s nothing wrong with it. I do it all the time. I wanted the contents of the feed, and I got the contents of the feed. The same technique works for any web page. But once you start thinking in terms of a web service that you want to access on a regular basis (e.g. requesting this feed once an hour), then you’re being inefficient, and you’re being rude.

⁂

## What’s On The Wire?

To see why this is inefficient and rude, let’s turn on the debugging features of Python’s HTTP library and see what’s being sent “on the wire” (i.e. over the network).

    >>> from http.client import HTTPConnection
    >>> HTTPConnection.debuglevel = 1                                       ①
    >>> from urllib.request import urlopen
    >>> response = urlopen('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml')  ②
    send: b'GET /examples/feed.xml HTTP/1.1                                 ③
    Host: diveintopython3.org                                               ④
    Accept-Encoding: identity                                               ⑤
    User-Agent: Python-urllib/3.0'                                          ⑥
    Connection: close
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'
    …further debugging information omitted…

1. As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, `urllib.request` relies on another standard Python library, `http.client`. Normally you don’t need to touch `http.client` directly. (The `urllib.request` module imports it automatically.) But we import it here so we can toggle the debugging flag on the `HTTPConnection` class that `urllib.request` uses to connect to the HTTP server.
2. Now that the debugging flag is set, information on the the HTTP request and response is printed out in real time. As you can see, when you request the Atom feed, the `urllib.request` module sends five lines to the server.
3. The first line specifies the HTTP verb you’re using, and the path of the resource (minus the domain name).
4. The second line specifies the domain name from which we’re requesting this feed.
5. The third line specifies the compression algorithms that the client supports. As I mentioned earlier, `urllib.request` does not support compression by default.
6. The fourth line specifies the name of the library that is making the request. By default, this is `Python-urllib` plus a version number. Both `urllib.request` and `httplib2` support changing the user agent, simply by adding a `User-Agent` header to the request (which will override the default value).

Now let’s look at what the server sent back in its response.

    # continued from previous example
    >>> print(response.headers.as_string())        ①
    Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 19:23:06 GMT            ②
    Server: Apache
    Last-Modified: Sun, 31 May 2009 06:39:55 GMT   ③
    ETag: "bfe-93d9c4c0"                           ④
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Content-Length: 3070                           ⑤
    Cache-Control: max-age=86400                   ⑥
    Expires: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:23:06 GMT
    Vary: Accept-Encoding
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: application/xml
    >>> data = response.read()                     ⑦
    >>> len(data)
    3070

1. The response returned from the `urllib.request.urlopen()` function contains all the HTTP headers the server sent back. It also contains methods to download the actual data; we’ll get to that in a minute.
2. The server tells you when it handled your request.
3. This response includes a `Last-Modified` header.
4. This response includes an `ETag` header.
5. The data is 3070 bytes long. Notice what isn’t here: a `Content-encoding` header. Your request stated that you only accept uncompressed data (`Accept-encoding: identity`), and sure enough, this response contains uncompressed data.
6. This response includes caching headers that state that this feed can be cached for up to 24 hours (86400 seconds).
7. And finally, download the actual data by calling `response.read()`. As you can tell from the `len()` function, this downloads all 3070 bytes at once.

As you can see, this code is already inefficient: it asked for (and received) uncompressed data. I know for a fact that this server supports gzip compression, but HTTP compression is opt-in. We didn’t ask for it, so we didn’t get it. That means we’re downloading 3070 bytes when we could have just downloaded 941. Bad dog, no biscuit.

But wait, it gets worse! To see just how inefficient this code is, let’s request the same feed a second time.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> response2 = urlopen('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml')
    send: b'GET /examples/feed.xml HTTP/1.1
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    Accept-Encoding: identity
    User-Agent: Python-urllib/3.0'
    Connection: close
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'
    …further debugging information omitted…

Notice anything peculiar about this request? It hasn’t changed! It’s exactly the same as the first request. No sign of `If-Modified-Since` headers. No sign of `If-None-Match` headers. No respect for the caching headers. Still no compression.

And what happens when you do the same thing twice? You get the same response. Twice.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> print(response2.headers.as_string())     ①
    Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:58:00 GMT
    Server: Apache
    Last-Modified: Sun, 31 May 2009 22:51:11 GMT
    ETag: "bfe-255ef5c0"
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Content-Length: 3070
    Cache-Control: max-age=86400
    Expires: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:58:00 GMT
    Vary: Accept-Encoding
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: application/xml
    >>> data2 = response2.read()
    >>> len(data2)                               ②
    3070
    >>> data2 == data                            ③
    True

1. The server is still sending the same array of “smart” headers: `Cache-Control` and `Expires` to allow caching, `Last-Modified` and `ETag` to enable “not-modified” tracking. Even the `Vary: Accept-Encoding` header hints that the server would support compression, if only you would ask for it. But you didn’t.
2. Once again, fetching this data downloads the whole 3070 bytes…
3. …the exact same 3070 bytes you downloaded last time.

HTTP is designed to work better than this. `urllib` speaks HTTP like I speak Spanish — enough to get by in a jam, but not enough to hold a conversation. HTTP is a conversation. It’s time to upgrade to a library that speaks HTTP fluently.

⁂

## Introducing `httplib2`

To use `httplib2`, create an instance of the `httplib2.Http` class.

    >>> import httplib2
    >>> h = httplib2.Http('.cache')                                                    ①
    >>> response, content = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml')  ②
    >>> response.status                                                                ③
    200
    >>> content[:52]                                                                   ④
    b"<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>\r\n<feed xmlns="
    >>> len(content)
    3070

1. The primary interface to `httplib2` is the `Http` object. For reasons you’ll see in the next section, you should always pass a directory name when you create an `Http` object. The directory does not need to exist; `httplib2` will create it if necessary.
2. Once you have an `Http` object, retrieving data is as simple as calling the `request()` method with the address of the data you want. This will issue an HTTP `GET` request for that URL. (Later in this chapter, you’ll see how to issue other HTTP requests, like `POST`.)
3. The `request()` method returns two values. The first is an `httplib2.Response` object, which contains all the HTTP headers the server returned. For example, a `status` code of `200` indicates that the request was successful.
4. The content variable contains the actual data that was returned by the HTTP server. The data is returned as `bytes`, not `str`. If you want it as a string, you’ll need to determine the character encoding and explicitly convert it.

> ☞You probably only need one `httplib2.Http` object. There are valid reasons for creating more than one, but you should only do so if you know why you need them. “I need to request data from two different URLs” is not a valid reason. Re-use the `Http` object and just call the `request()` method twice.

### How `httplib2` Handles Caching

Remember in the previous section when I said you should always create an `httplib2.Http` object with a directory name? Caching is the reason.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> response2, content2 = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml')  ①
    >>> response2.status                                                                 ②
    200
    >>> content2[:52]                                                                    ③
    b"<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>\r\n<feed xmlns="
    >>> len(content2)
    3070

1. This shouldn’t be terribly surprising. It’s the same thing you did last time, except you’re putting the result into two new variables.
2. The HTTP `status` is once again `200`, just like last time.
3. The downloaded content is the same as last time, too.

So… who cares? Quit your Python interactive shell and relaunch it with a new session, and I’ll show you.

    # NOT continued from previous example!
    # Please exit out of the interactive shell
    # and launch a new one.
    >>> import httplib2
    >>> httplib2.debuglevel = 1                                                        ①
    >>> h = httplib2.Http('.cache')                                                    ②
    >>> response, content = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml')  ③
    >>> len(content)                                                                   ④
    3070
    >>> response.status                                                                ⑤
    200
    >>> response.fromcache                                                             ⑥
    True

1. Let’s turn on debugging and see what’s on the wire. This is the `httplib2` equivalent of turning on debugging in `http.client`. `httplib2` will print all the data being sent to the server and some key information being sent back.
2. Create an `httplib2.Http` object with the same directory name as before.
3. Request the same URL as before. Nothing appears to happen. More precisely, nothing gets sent to the server, and nothing gets returned from the server. There is absolutely no network activity whatsoever.
4. Yet we did “receive” some data — in fact, we received all of it.
5. We also “received” an HTTP status code indicating that the “request” was successful.
6. Here’s the rub: this “response” was generated from `httplib2`’s local cache. That directory name you passed in when you created the `httplib2.Http` object — that directory holds `httplib2`’s cache of all the operations it’s ever performed.

You previously requested the data at this URL. That request was successful (`status: 200`). That response included not only the feed data, but also a set of caching headers that told anyone who was listening that they could cache this resource for up to 24 hours (`Cache-Control: max-age=86400`, which is 24 hours measured in seconds). `httplib2` understand and respects those caching headers, and it stored the previous response in the `.cache` directory (which you passed in when you create the `Http` object). That cache hasn’t expired yet, so the second time you request the data at this URL, `httplib2` simply returns the cached result without ever hitting the network.

I say “simply,” but obviously there is a lot of complexity hidden behind that simplicity. `httplib2` handles HTTP caching automatically and by default. If for some reason you need to know whether a response came from the cache, you can check `response.fromcache`. Otherwise, it Just Works.

Now, suppose you have data cached, but you want to bypass the cache and re-request it from the remote server. Browsers sometimes do this if the user specifically requests it. For example, pressing `F5` refreshes the current page, but pressing `Ctrl+F5` bypasses the cache and re-requests the current page from the remote server. You might think “oh, I’ll just delete the data from my local cache, then request it again.” You could do that, but remember that there may be more parties involved than just you and the remote server. What about those intermediate proxy servers? They’re completely beyond your control, and they may still have that data cached, and will happily return it to you because (as far as they are concerned) their cache is still valid.

Instead of manipulating your local cache and hoping for the best, you should use the features of HTTP to ensure that your request actually reaches the remote server.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> response2, content2 = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml',
    ...     headers={'cache-control':'no-cache'})  ①
    connect: (diveintopython3.org, 80)             ②
    send: b'GET /examples/feed.xml HTTP/1.1
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip
    cache-control: no-cache'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'
    …further debugging information omitted…
    >>> response2.status
    200
    >>> response2.fromcache                        ③
    False
    >>> print(dict(response2.items()))             ④
    {'status': '200',
     'content-length': '3070',
     'content-location': 'http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml',
     'accept-ranges': 'bytes',
     'expires': 'Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:40:26 GMT',
     'vary': 'Accept-Encoding',
     'server': 'Apache',
     'last-modified': 'Sun, 31 May 2009 22:51:11 GMT',
     'connection': 'close',
     '-content-encoding': 'gzip',
     'etag': '"bfe-255ef5c0"',
     'cache-control': 'max-age=86400',
     'date': 'Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:40:26 GMT',
     'content-type': 'application/xml'}

1. `httplib2` allows you to add arbitrary HTTP headers to any outgoing request. In order to bypass all caches (not just your local disk cache, but also any caching proxies between you and the remote server), add a `no-cache` header in the headers dictionary.
2. Now you see `httplib2` initiating a network request. `httplib2` understands and respects caching headers in both directions — as part of the incoming response and as part of the outgoing request. It noticed that you added the `no-cache` header, so it bypassed its local cache altogether and then had no choice but to hit the network to request the data.
3. This response was not generated from your local cache. You knew that, of course, because you saw the debugging information on the outgoing request. But it’s nice to have that programmatically verified.
4. The request succeeded; you downloaded the entire feed again from the remote server. Of course, the server also sent back a full complement of HTTP headers along with the feed data. That includes caching headers, which `httplib2` uses to update its local cache, in the hopes of avoiding network access the next time you request this feed. Everything about HTTP caching is designed to maximize cache hits and minimize network access. Even though you bypassed the cache this time, the remote server would really appreciate it if you would cache the result for next time.

### How `httplib2` Handles `Last-Modified` and `ETag` Headers

The `Cache-Control` and `Expires` caching headers are called freshness indicators. They tell caches in no uncertain terms that you can completely avoid all network access until the cache expires. And that’s exactly the behavior you saw in the previous section: given a strong validator, `httplib2` does not generate a single byte of network activity to serve up cached data (unless you explicitly bypass the cache, of course).

But what about the case where the data might have changed, but hasn’t? HTTP defines `Last-Modified` and `Etag` headers for this purpose. These headers are called validators. If the local cache is no longer fresh, a client can send the validators with the next request to see if the data has actually changed. If the data hasn’t changed, the server sends back a `304` status code and no data. So there’s still a round-trip over the network, but you end up downloading fewer bytes.

    >>> import httplib2
    >>> httplib2.debuglevel = 1
    >>> h = httplib2.Http('.cache')
    >>> response, content = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/')  ①
    connect: (diveintopython3.org, 80)
    send: b'GET / HTTP/1.1
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'
    >>> print(dict(response.items()))                                 ②
    {'-content-encoding': 'gzip',
     'accept-ranges': 'bytes',
     'connection': 'close',
     'content-length': '6657',
     'content-location': 'http://diveintopython3.org/',
     'content-type': 'text/html',
     'date': 'Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:26:54 GMT',
     'etag': '"7f806d-1a01-9fb97900"',
     'last-modified': 'Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:51:48 GMT',
     'server': 'Apache',
     'status': '304',
     'vary': 'Accept-Encoding,User-Agent'}
    >>> len(content)                                                  ③
    6657

1. Instead of the feed, this time we’re going to download the site’s home page, which is HTML. Since this is the first time you’lve ever requested this page, `httplib2` has little to work with, and it sends out a minimum of headers with the request.
2. The response contains a multitude of HTTP headers… but no caching information. However, it does include both an `ETag` and `Last-Modified` header.
3. At the time I constructed this example, this page was 6657 bytes. It’s probably changed since then, but don’t worry about it.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> response, content = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/')  ①
    connect: (diveintopython3.org, 80)
    send: b'GET / HTTP/1.1
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    if-none-match: "7f806d-1a01-9fb97900"                             ②
    if-modified-since: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:51:48 GMT                  ③
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified'                                ④
    >>> response.fromcache                                            ⑤
    True
    >>> response.status                                               ⑥
    200
    >>> response.dict['status']                                       ⑦
    '304'
    >>> len(content)                                                  ⑧
    6657

1. You request the same page again, with the same `Http` object (and the same local cache).
2. `httplib2` sends the `ETag` validator back to the server in the `If-None-Match` header.
3. `httplib2` also sends the `Last-Modified` validator back to the server in the `If-Modified-Since` header.
4. The server looked at these validators, looked at the page you requested, and determined that the page has not changed since you last requested it, so it sends back a `304` status code and no data.
5. Back on the client, `httplib2` notices the `304` status code and loads the content of the page from its cache.
6. This might be a bit confusing. There are really two status codes — `304` (returned from the server this time, which caused `httplib2` to look in its cache), and `200` (returned from the server last time, and stored in `httplib2`’s cache along with the page data). `response.status` returns the status from the cache.
7. If you want the raw status code returned from the server, you can get that by looking in `response.dict`, which is a dictionary of the actual headers returned from the server.
8. However, you still get the data in the content variable. Generally, you don’t need to know why a response was served from the cache. (You may not even care that it was served from the cache at all, and that’s fine too. `httplib2` is smart enough to let you act dumb.) By the time the `request()` method returns to the caller, `httplib2` has already updated its cache and returned the data to you.

### How `http2lib` Handles Compression

HTTP supports two types of compression. `httplib2` supports both of them.

    >>> response, content = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/')
    connect: (diveintopython3.org, 80)
    send: b'GET / HTTP/1.1
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip                          ①
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'
    >>> print(dict(response.items()))
    {'-content-encoding': 'gzip',                           ②
     'accept-ranges': 'bytes',
     'connection': 'close',
     'content-length': '6657',
     'content-location': 'http://diveintopython3.org/',
     'content-type': 'text/html',
     'date': 'Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:26:54 GMT',
     'etag': '"7f806d-1a01-9fb97900"',
     'last-modified': 'Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:51:48 GMT',
     'server': 'Apache',
     'status': '304',
     'vary': 'Accept-Encoding,User-Agent'}

1. Every time `httplib2` sends a request, it includes an `Accept-Encoding` header to tell the server that it can handle either `deflate` or `gzip` compression.
2. In this case, the server has responded with a gzip-compressed payload. By the time the `request()` method returns, `httplib2` has already decompressed the body of the response and placed it in the content variable. If you’re curious about whether or not the response was compressed, you can check the response dictionary; otherwise, don’t worry about it.

### How `httplib2` Handles Redirects

HTTP defines two kinds of redirects: temporary and permanent. There’s nothing special to do with temporary redirects except follow them, which `httplib2` does automatically.

    >>> import httplib2
    >>> h = httplib2.Http('.cache')
    >>> response, content = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed-302.xml')  ①
    connect: (diveintopython3.org, 80)
    send: b'GET /examples/feed-302.xml HTTP/1.1                                            ②
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 302 Found'                                                            ③
    send: b'GET /examples/feed.xml HTTP/1.1                                                ④
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'

1. There is no feed at this URL. I’ve set up my server to issue a temporary redirect to the correct address.
2. There’s the request.
3. And there’s the response: `302 Found`. Not shown here, this response also includes a `Location` header that points to the real URL.
4. `httplib2` immediately turns around and “follows” the redirect by issuing another request for the URL given in the `Location` header: `http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml`

“Following” a redirect is nothing more than this example shows. `httplib2` sends a request for the URL you asked for. The server comes back with a response that says “No no, look over there instead.” `httplib2` sends another request for the new URL.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> print(dict(response.items()))                                     ①
    {'status': '200',
     'content-length': '3070',
     'content-location': 'http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml',  ②
     'accept-ranges': 'bytes',
     'expires': 'Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:21:41 GMT',
     'vary': 'Accept-Encoding',
     'server': 'Apache',
     'last-modified': 'Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:20:15 GMT',
     'connection': 'close',
     '-content-encoding': 'gzip',                                         ③
     'etag': '"bfe-4cbbf5c0"',
     'cache-control': 'max-age=86400',                                    ④
     'date': 'Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:21:41 GMT',
     'content-type': 'application/xml'}

1. The response you get back from this single call to the `request()` method is the response from the final URL.
2. `httplib2` adds the final URL to the response dictionary, as `content-location`. This is not a header that came from the server; it’s specific to `httplib2`.
3. Apropos of nothing, this feed is compressed.
4. And cacheable. (This is important, as you’ll see in the next example.)

What happens if you request the same URL again?

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> response2, content2 = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed-302.xml')  ①
    connect: (diveintopython3.org, 80)
    send: b'GET /examples/feed-302.xml HTTP/1.1                                              ②
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 302 Found'                                                              ③
    >>> content2 == content                                                                  ④
    True

1. Same URL, same `httplib2.Http` object (and therefore the same cache).
2. The `302` response was not cached, so `httplib2` sends another request for the same URL.
3. Once again, the server responds with a `302`. But notice what didn’t happen: there wasn’t ever a second request for the final URL, `http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml`. That response was cached (remember the `Cache-Control` header that you saw in the previous example). Once `httplib2` received the `302 Found` code, it checked its cache before issuing another request. The cache contained a fresh copy of `http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml`, so there was no need to re-request it.
4. By the time the `request()` method returns, it has read the feed data from the cache and returned it. Of course, it’s the same as the data you received last time.

In other words, you don’t have to do anything special for temporary redirects. `httplib2` will follow them automatically, and the fact that one URL redirects to another has no bearing on `httplib2`’s support for compression, caching, `ETags`, or any of the other features of HTTP.

Permanent redirects are just as simple.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> response, content = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed-301.xml')  ①
    connect: (diveintopython3.org, 80)
    send: b'GET /examples/feed-301.xml HTTP/1.1
    Host: diveintopython3.org
    accept-encoding: deflate, gzip
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently'                                                ②
    >>> response.fromcache                                                                 ③
    True

1. Once again, this URL doesn’t really exist. I’ve set up my server to issue a permanent redirect to `http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed.xml`.
2. And here it is: status code `301`. But again, notice what didn’t happen: there was no request to the redirect URL. Why not? Because it’s already cached locally.
3. `httplib2` “followed” the redirect right into its cache.

But wait! There’s more!

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> response2, content2 = h.request('http://diveintopython3.org/examples/feed-301.xml')  ①
    >>> response2.fromcache                                                                  ②
    True
    >>> content2 == content                                                                  ③
    True

1. Here’s the difference between temporary and permanent redirects: once `httplib2` follows a permanent redirect, all further requests for that URL will transparently be rewritten to the target URL without hitting the network for the original URL. Remember, debugging is still turned on, yet there is no output of network activity whatsoever.
2. Yep, this response was retrieved from the local cache.
3. Yep, you got the entire feed (from the cache).

HTTP. It works.

⁂

## Beyond HTTP GET

HTTP web services are not limited to `GET` requests. What if you want to create something new? Whenever you post a comment on a discussion forum, update your weblog, publish your status on a microblogging service like Twitter or Identi.ca, you’re probably already using HTTP `POST`.

Both Twitter and Identi.ca both offer a simple HTTP-based API for publishing and updating your status in 140 characters or less. Let’s look at Identi.ca’s API documentation for updating your status:

> Identi.ca REST API Method: statuses/update
> Updates the authenticating user’s status. Requires the `status` parameter specified below. Request must be a `POST`.

> URL
>   `https://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.format`
> Formats
>   `xml`, `json`, `rss`, `atom`
> HTTP Method(s)
>   `POST`
> Requires Authentication
>   true
> Parameters
>   `status`. Required. The text of your status update. URL-encode as necessary.

How does this work? To publish a new message on Identi.ca, you need to issue an HTTP `POST` request to `http://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.format`. (The format bit is not part of the URL; you replace it with the data format you want the server to return in response to your request. So if you want a response in XML, you would post the request to `https://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.xml`.) The request needs to include a parameter called `status`, which contains the text of your status update. And the request needs to be authenticated.

Authenticated? Sure. To update your status on Identi.ca, you need to prove who you are. Identi.ca is not a wiki; only you can update your own status. Identi.ca uses HTTP Basic Authentication (a.k.a. RFC 2617) over SSL to provide secure but easy-to-use authentication. `httplib2` supports both SSL and HTTP Basic Authentication, so this part is easy.

A `POST` request is different from a `GET` request, because it includes a payload. The payload is the data you want to send to the server. The once piece of data that this API method requires is `status`, and it should be URL-encoded. This is a very simple serialization format that takes a set of key-value pairs (i.e. a dictionary) and transforms it into a string.

    >>> from urllib.parse import urlencode              ①
    >>> data = {'status': 'Test update from Python 3'}  ②
    >>> urlencode(data)                                 ③
    'status=test+update+from+python+3'

1. Python comes with a utility function to URL-encode a dictionary: `urllib.parse.urlencode()`.
2. This is the sort of dictionary that the Identi.ca API is looking for. It contains one key, `status`, whose value is the text of a single status update.
3. This is what the URL-encoded string looks like. This is the payload that will be sent “on the wire” to the Identi.ca API server in your HTTP `POST` request.

    >>> from urllib.parse import urlencode
    >>> import httplib2
    >>> httplib2.debuglevel = 1
    >>> h = httplib2.Http('.cache')
    >>> data = {'status': 'Test update from Python 3'}
    >>> h.add_credentials('diveintomark', 'MY_SECRET_PASSWORD')                 ①
    >>> resp, content = h.request('https://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.xml',
    ...     'POST',                                                             ③
    ...     urlencode(data),                                                    ④
    ...     headers={'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'})      ⑤

1. This is how `httplib2` handles authentication. Store your username and password with the `add_credentials()` method. When `httplib2` tries to issue the request, the server will respond with a `401 Unauthorized` status code, and it will list which authentication methods it supports (in the `WWW-Authenticate` header). `httplib2` will automatically construct an `Authorization` header and re-request the URL.
2. The second parameter is the type of HTTP request, in this case `POST`.
3. The third parameter is the payload to send to the server. We’re sending the URL-encoded dictionary with a status message.
4. Finally, we need to tell the server that the payload is URL-encoded data.

This is what goes over the wire:

    # continued from the previous example
    send: b'POST /api/statuses/update.xml HTTP/1.1
    Host: identi.ca
    Accept-Encoding: identity
    Content-Length: 32
    content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $

    status=Test+update+from+Python+3'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized'                        ①
    send: b'POST /api/statuses/update.xml HTTP/1.1            ②
    Host: identi.ca
    Accept-Encoding: identity
    Content-Length: 32
    content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
    authorization: Basic SECRET_HASH_CONSTRUCTED_BY_HTTPLIB2  ③
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $

    status=Test+update+from+Python+3'
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'                                  ④

1. After the first request, the server responds with a `401 Unauthorized` status code. `httplib2` will never send authentication headers unless the server explicitly asks for them. This is how the server asks for them.
2. `httplib2` immediately turns around and requests the same URL a second time.
3. This time, it includes the username and password that you added with the `add_credentials()` method.
4. It worked!

What does the server send back after a successful request? That depends entirely on the web service API. In some protocols (like the Atom Publishing Protocol), the server sends back a `201 Created` status code and the location of the newly created resource in the `Location` header. Identi.ca sends back a `200 OK` and an XML document containing information about the newly created resource.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> print(content.decode('utf-8'))                             ①
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <status>
     <text>Test update from Python 3</text>                        ②
     <truncated>false</truncated>
     <created_at>Wed Jun 10 03:53:46 +0000 2009</created_at>
     <in_reply_to_status_id></in_reply_to_status_id>
     <source>api</source>
     <id>5131472</id>                                              ③
     <in_reply_to_user_id></in_reply_to_user_id>
     <in_reply_to_screen_name></in_reply_to_screen_name>
     <favorited>false</favorited>
     <user>
      <id>3212</id>
      <name>Mark Pilgrim</name>
      <screen_name>diveintomark</screen_name>
      <location>27502, US</location>
      <description>tech writer, husband, father</description>
      <profile_image_url>http://avatar.identi.ca/3212-48-20081216000626.png</profile_image_url>
      <url>http://diveintomark.org/</url>
      <protected>false</protected>
      <followers_count>329</followers_count>
      <profile_background_color></profile_background_color>
      <profile_text_color></profile_text_color>
      <profile_link_color></profile_link_color>
      <profile_sidebar_fill_color></profile_sidebar_fill_color>
      <profile_sidebar_border_color></profile_sidebar_border_color>
      <friends_count>2</friends_count>
      <created_at>Wed Jul 02 22:03:58 +0000 2008</created_at>
      <favourites_count>30768</favourites_count>
      <utc_offset>0</utc_offset>
      <time_zone>UTC</time_zone>
      <profile_background_image_url></profile_background_image_url>
      <profile_background_tile>false</profile_background_tile>
      <statuses_count>122</statuses_count>
      <following>false</following>
      <notifications>false</notifications>
    </user>
    </status>

1. Remember, the data returned by `httplib2` is always bytes, not a string. To convert it to a string, you need to decode it using the proper character encoding. Identi.ca’s API always returns results in UTF-8, so that part is easy.
2. There’s the text of the status message we just published.
3. There’s the unique identifier for the new status message. Identi.ca uses this to construct a URL for viewing the message on the web.

And here it is:

⁂

## Beyond HTTP POST

HTTP isn’t limited to `GET` and `POST`. Those are certainly the most common types of requests, especially in web browsers. But web service APIs can go beyond `GET` and `POST`, and `httplib2` is ready.

    # continued from the previous example
    >>> from xml.etree import ElementTree as etree
    >>> tree = etree.fromstring(content)                                          ①
    >>> status_id = tree.findtext('id')                                           ②
    >>> status_id
    '5131472'
    >>> url = 'https://identi.ca/api/statuses/destroy/{0}.xml'.format(status_id)  ③
    >>> resp, deleted_content = h.request(url, 'DELETE')                          ④

1. The server returned XML, right? You know how to parse XML.
2. The `findtext()` method finds the first instance of the given expression and extracts its text content. In this case, we’re just looking for an `<id>` element.
3. Based on the text content of the `<id>` element, we can construct a URL to delete the status message we just published.
4. To delete a message, you simply issue an HTTP `DELETE` request to that URL.

This is what goes over the wire:

    send: b'DELETE /api/statuses/destroy/5131472.xml HTTP/1.1      ①
    Host: identi.ca
    Accept-Encoding: identity
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $

    '
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized'                             ②
    send: b'DELETE /api/statuses/destroy/5131472.xml HTTP/1.1      ③
    Host: identi.ca
    Accept-Encoding: identity
    authorization: Basic SECRET_HASH_CONSTRUCTED_BY_HTTPLIB2       ④
    user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $

    '
    reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'                                       ⑤
    >>> resp.status
    200

1. “Delete this status message.”
2. “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
3. “Unauthorized‽ Hmmph. Delete this status message, please…
4. …and here’s my username and password.”
5. “Consider it done!”

And just like that, poof, it’s gone.

⁂

## Further Reading

`httplib2`:

- `httplib2` project page
- More `httplib2` code examples
- Doing HTTP Caching Right: Introducing `httplib2`
- `httplib2`: HTTP Persistence and Authentication

HTTP caching:

- HTTP Caching Tutorial by Mark Nottingham
- How to control caching with HTTP headers on Google Doctype

RFCs:

- RFC 2616: HTTP
- RFC 2617: HTTP Basic Authentication
- RFC 1951: deflate compression
- RFC 1952: gzip compression

☜ ☞

© 2001–9 Mark Pilgrim