Python mimics the way POST submits HTTP data and USES Cookie values

This article illustrates how to simulate POST HTTP data and submit data with Cookie in Python. The specific implementation method is as follows:

Methods a

If you don't use cookies, sending an HTTP POST is very simple:

import urllib2, urllib

data = {'name' : 'www', 'password' : '123456'}

f = urllib2.urlopen(

        url     = '//www.jb51.net/',

        data    = urllib.urlencode(data)

  )

print f.read()

When using cookies, the code gets a little more complicated:

import urllib2

cookies = urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor()

opener = urllib2.build_opener(cookies)

f = opener.open('http://www.xxxx.net/?act=login&name=user01')

data = '<root>Hello</root>'

request = urllib2.Request(

        url     = 'http://www.xxxx.net/?act=send',

        headers = {'Content-Type' : 'text/xml'},

        data    = data)

opener.open(request)

The first open() is a login. The Cookie returned by the server is automatically saved in cookies and used for subsequent requests.

The second open() USES the POST method to send content-type =text/ XML data to the server. If you do not create a Request but use the urlopen() method directly, Python forces the content-type to be changed to application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

Method 2

Urllib2 library, with Cookie request URL page

Case 1:

import urllib2

opener = urllib2.build_opener()

opener.addheaders.append(('Cookie', 'cookiename=cookievalue'))

f = opener.open("http://example.com/")

Example 2:

import urllib2

import urllib

from cookielib import CookieJar

 

cj = CookieJar()

opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cj))

# input-type values from the html form

formdata = { "username" : username, "password": password, "form-id" : "1234" }

data_encoded = urllib.urlencode(formdata)

response = opener.open("https://page.com/login.php", data_encoded)

content = response.read()

I hope this article has helped you with your Python programming.