Python Requests Module - API Calls

Question

I'm written a django web project and am using some API calls. I'd like to try and build in some mechanisms to handle slow and failed API calls. Specifically, I'd like to try the API call three times with increasing call times breaking the loop when the request is successful. What is a good way to handle this or is what I've put together acceptable? Below is the code I have in place now.

    for x in [0.5, 1, 5]: 
        try:
            r = requests.get(api_url, headers = headers, timeout=x)
            break
        except: 
            pass

is this [`requests`](http://www.python-requests.org/en/latest/) you are using? you probably want to `except` whatever timeout exception is raised explicitly, or at least use `except Exception` to avoid catching `SystemError`s or `KeyboardInterrupt`. See [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21553327/why-is-except-pass-a-bad-programming-practice) for more on why — lemonhead, Aug 20 '15 at 02:43
also, the code as it is currently will catch the exception upon the final request timeout and continue on assuming `r` is a successful `Request`, which is probably not what you want... — lemonhead, Aug 20 '15 at 02:45
http://migrateup.com/making-unreliable-apis-reliable-with-python/# — user4107395, Aug 20 '15 at 03:06

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:44

You can use exceptions provided by requests itself to handle failed Api calls. You can use ConnectionError exception if a network problem occurs. Refer to this so post for more details. I am not pasting a link to requests docs and explaining every exception in detail since SO post given before have the answer for your question. An example code segment is given below

try:
    r = requests.get(url, params={'key': 'value'})
except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError as e:    
    print e

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 21 '15 at 01:57

0

This outlines the procedure I'm talking about. A single API request could end up being a little flaky.

migrateup.com/making-unreliable-apis-reliable-with-python/#

answered Aug 21 '15 at 01:57

user4107395

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Python Requests Module - API Calls

2 Answers2