How do I send a HTTP POST value to a (PHP) page using Python?

Question

I have a PHP page that has 1 textbox and when I press on the submit button. My SQL is going to store this product name into my database. My question is; is it possible to send/post the product name using Python script that asks for 1 value and then use my PHP page to send it to my database? Thanks!

Duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/111945/is-there-anyway-to-do-http-put-in-python, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/393738/programmatic-form-submit, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/571083/in-python-how-might-one-log-in-answer-a-web-form-via-http-post-not-url-encoded — S.Lott, Mar 10 '09 at 10:07
Duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/68477/send-file-using-post-from-a-python-script, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/150517/send-file-using-post-from-a-python-script — S.Lott, Mar 10 '09 at 10:07
@S.Lott: Sending a file is different, because it's typically form/multipart data. I'd say this question is legit. Perhaps too much so to quit. — cdleary, Mar 11 '09 at 11:27

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 10 '09 at 10:05

Check out the urllib and urllib2 modules.

http://docs.python.org/library/urllib2.html

http://docs.python.org/library/urllib.html

Simply create a Request object with the needed data. Then read the response from your PHP service.

http://docs.python.org/library/urllib2.html#urllib2.Request

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 10 '09 at 13:15

3

When testing, or automating websites using python, I enjoy using twill. Twill is a tool that automatically handles cookies and can read HTML forms and submit them.

For instance, if you had a form on a webpage you could conceivably use the following code:

from twill import commands
commands.go('http://example.com/create_product')
commands.formvalue('formname', 'product', 'new value')
commands.submit()

This would load the form, fill in the value, and submit it.

answered Mar 10 '09 at 13:15

Jerub

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While twill is really convenient for testing scripts, it is somewhat broken in 2 ways. 1) Must parse HTML before it could post. 2) Cannot always handle invalid HTML without crashing. – kkubasik Mar 11 '09 at 04:15
"Doesn't work with forms that don't exist or are invalid" are two things that I don't care about. This is not a 'broken' thing. – Jerub Mar 11 '09 at 06:51

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 10 '09 at 10:06

2

Yes. urllib2 is a nice Python way to form/send HTTP requests.

answered Mar 10 '09 at 10:06

Hank Gay

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 10 '09 at 21:16

I find http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/articles/urllib2.shtml to be a good source of information about urllib2, which is probably the best tool for the job.

import urllib
import urllib2

url = 'http://www.someserver.com/cgi-bin/register.cgi'
user_agent = 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT)'
values = {'name' : 'Michael Foord',
          'location' : 'Northampton',
          'language' : 'Python' }
headers = { 'User-Agent' : user_agent }

data = urllib.urlencode(values)
req = urllib2.Request(url, data, headers)
response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
the_page = response.read()

The encoding is actually done using urllib, and this supports HTTP POST. There is also a way to use GET, where you have to pass the data into urlencode.

Don't forget to call read() though, otherwise the request won't be completed.

FredWe · Answer 5 · 2016-01-03T17:08:34.260

Personally i prefer to use Requests. As its summary, this is a HTTP library for Python, built for human beings.

To quickly solve problems, rather than study deeply in HTTP, Requests will be a better choice. (Yeah, i mean compared to urllib or socket)

For example, A python file which send a POST request with userdata:

import requests
userdata = {"firstname": "Smith", "lastname": "Ayasaki", "password": "123456"}
resp = requests.post('http://example.com/test.php', data = userdata)

And the following text.php treating this request:

$firstname = htmlspecialchars($_POST["firstname"]);
$lastname = htmlspecialchars($_POST["lastname"]);
$password = htmlspecialchars($_POST["password"]);
echo "FIRSTNAME: $firstname  LASTNAME: $lastname  PW: $password";

Finally, the response text (resp.content in python) will be like:

FIRSTNAME: Smith LASTNAME: Ayasaki PW: 123456

A simple Quickstart: http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/user/quickstart/
Another answer recommending Requests: Sending data using POST in Python to PHP

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

Just an addendum to @antileet's procedure, it works similarly if you're trying to do a HTTP POST request with a web-service-like payload, except you just omit the urlencode step; i.e.

import urllib, urllib2

payload = """
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<web_service_request>
    <short_order>Spam</short_order>
    <short_order>Eggs</short_order>
</web_service_request>
""".strip()
query_string_values = {'test': 1}
uri = 'http://example.com'

# You can still encode values in the query string, even though
# it's a POST request. Nice to have this when your payload is
# a chunk of text.
if query_string_values:
    uri = ''.join([uri, '/?', urllib.urlencode(query_string_values)])
req = urllib2.Request(uri, data=payload)
assert req.get_method() == 'POST'
response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
print 'Response:', response.read()

How do I send a HTTP POST value to a (PHP) page using Python?

6 Answers6

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