Get access token from Paypal in Python - Using urllib2 or requests library

Question

cURL

curl -v https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/oauth2/token \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Accept-Language: en_US" \
  -u "client_id:client_secret" \
  -d "grant_type=client_credentials"

Parameters: -u take client_id:client_secret

Here I pass my client_id and client_secret, It's worked properly in cURL.

I am trying to same things implement on Python

Python

import urllib2
import base64
token_url = 'https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/oauth2/token'
client_id = '.....'
client_secret = '....'

credentials = "%s:%s" % (client_id, client_secret)
encode_credential = base64.b64encode(credentials.encode('utf-8')).decode('utf-8').replace("\n", "")

header_params = {
    "Authorization": ("Basic %s" % encode_credential),
    "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
    "Accept": "application/json"
}
param = {
    'grant_type': 'client_credentials',
}

request = urllib2.Request(token_url, param, header_params)
response = urllib2.urlopen(request)
print "Response______", response

Traceback:

result = urllib2.urlopen(request)
 HTTPError: HTTP Error 400: Bad Request

Can you inform me whats wrong with my python code?

Pedro Lobito · Answer 1 · 2021-10-23T22:51:51.630

Late answer, but as of 2021, I use the following python code to generate a new bearer token:

If you haven't done so, create a new live app on developer.paypal.com
You'll receive a Client ID and a Secret, which you'll use to generate the Bearer Token.

Python Code:

import requests

d = {"grant_type" : "client_credentials"}
h = {"Accept": "application/json", "Accept-Language": "en_US"}

cid = "ASOGsGWr7yxepDuthbkKL-WoGNVAS7O0XlZ2ejcWsBA8ZXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
secret = "EJTKAFEYfN9IaVHc4Y-MECzgBivt2MfW6rcyfbVky0T07yRwuuTdXOczuCoEIXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

r = requests.post('https://api.paypal.com/v1/oauth2/token', auth=(cid, secret), headers=h, data=d).json()
access_token = r['access_token']

Sources:

@AlwaysLearning Links are working fine fine, but paypal has the (bad) habit of changing help urls based on user location/language, causing problems like the one you're facing. — Pedro Lobito, Oct 23 '21 at 22:44

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 17 '15 at 13:24

3

I would suggest using requests:

import requests
import base64

client_id = ""
client_secret = ""

credentials = "%s:%s" % (client_id, client_secret)
encode_credential = base64.b64encode(credentials.encode('utf-8')).decode('utf-8').replace("\n", "")

headers = {
    "Authorization": ("Basic %s" % encode_credential),
    'Accept': 'application/json',
    'Accept-Language': 'en_US',
}

param = {
    'grant_type': 'client_credentials',
}

url = 'https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/oauth2/token'

r = requests.post(url, headers=headers, data=param)

print(r.text)

answered Jul 17 '15 at 13:24

heinst

8,520
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may I know why are you suggest `requests.post` instead of `urllib2.open` ? – Jaykumar Patel Jul 20 '15 at 05:26
3

@S͢kyD͢ream because it is the best HTTP library for Python, you can do a lot more, with less code/libraries than with the standard libs – heinst Jul 20 '15 at 12:22

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 17 '15 at 13:28

0

It needs URL encoding:

param = {
  'grant_type': 'client_credentials',
}

data = urllib.urlencode(param)
request = urllib2.Request(token_url, data, header_params)

answered Jul 17 '15 at 13:28

Hans Z.

50,496
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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 15 '20 at 19:53

This was the answer that worked for me with python 3.7. I needed to apply a base64 encoding to my auth credentials:

import base64
import requests
from backend.config import Config


def get_paypal_access_token(client_id=Config.PAYPAL_CLIENT_ID, secret=Config.PAYPAL_SECRET):
    url = "https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/oauth2/token"
    payload = 'grant_type=client_credentials'
    encoded_auth = base64.b64encode((Config.PAYPAL_CLIENT_ID + ':' + Config.PAYPAL_SECRET).encode())
    headers = {
      'Authorization': f'Basic {encoded_auth.decode()}',
      'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
    }
    r = requests.request("POST", url, headers=headers, data=payload)
    assert r.status_code == 200
    return r.json()["access_token"]

I handle my client ID and secret from PayPal via a Config file, but hopefully it's straightforward how you would swap these out with your own credentials once you've registered your app.

Get access token from Paypal in Python - Using urllib2 or requests library

cURL

Python

4 Answers4

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