Making HTTP Requests in Python Using 'requests' or 'urllib' Libraries

In Python, making HTTP requests is a quite common task and to facilitate this, several libraries have been developed, notably, ‘requests’ and ‘urllib’. These libraries are high-level modules that allow developers to send HTTP/1.1 requests. With them, we can use GET, POST, and the other request methods in a simpler and easier way.

Using 'requests' Library

The 'requests' library is simple and brief, and it's quite handy when it comes to making HTTP requests. To use this library, you need to install it first by using pip:

pip install requests

After installation, you can use it to make a GET request as follows:

import requests

res = requests.get('http://example.com')
print(res.text)

The above code sends a GET request to the specified URL and prints the result.

Using 'urllib' Library

On the other hand, 'urllib' is a built-in Python library, so you don't need to install it. Here is how you can make a GET request using 'urllib':

from urllib import request

res = request.urlopen('http://example.com')
print(res.read())

When to use 'requests' or 'urllib' totally depends on your specific requirements. However, the 'requests' library is generally considered more user-friendly than 'urllib', especially for beginners, because of its simple and intuitive interface.

Best Practices

While these libraries make it fairly easy to send HTTP requests, remember to handle exceptions that might occur such as network errors, timeouts, etc. Also, always close session after sending requests if you're not using a 'with' statement to automatically handle this. This will ensure that resources are properly freed.

Conclusion

To sum up, Python indeed supports making HTTP requests natively using libraries like 'requests' or 'urllib'. They are invaluable tools in your Python networking toolkit, enabling you to interact with web services, download data, and much more!