How to get entire size of request message in python?

Question

I am trying to see how many bytes were sent out to the server when making an HTTP request.

import requests

resp = requests.get("http://www.example.com")

print(resp.request)
>>> <PreparedRequest [GET]>

How can I get the number of bytes contained in <PreparedRequest [GET]> including any attached files, payloads, etc.

Are you interested in determining the total raw byte count for the request, or is it enough to know the sizes of the useful payload portions of the request? — CryptoFool, Oct 15 '20 at 05:09
@Steve Currently trying to analyze traffic of a particular library. Trying to get an **APPROXIMATE** value for number of bytes outbound/inbound. I am using `len(resp.content)` for inbound. Don't know how to do outbound correctly right now. — AlanSTACK, Oct 15 '20 at 05:10
If you want to get pretty much the exact size of the request, including all the structure, I think this question/answers might do it for you: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20658572/python-requests-print-entire-http-request-raw. — CryptoFool, Oct 15 '20 at 05:17
If you want more of an approximation, then knowing the structure of what you're sending will let you get that. You mention a GET request as an example. A GET request has no body. PUT and POST requests have a body, but you should know what you're putting in there, so you should know the size. I guess there could be cases where the body of a PUT or POST is being constructed for you and so you don't know just how big they are, but I think you can get at the Content-Length header once the request is sent to get the size of the request body. — CryptoFool, Oct 15 '20 at 05:20
@Steve Really, there is no in-built method to calculate such a trivial property? I have to compute it by hand using the RFC? This is absurd... — AlanSTACK, Oct 15 '20 at 05:23
I was just looking at that URL I gave you above, and the Requests docs. I think you can get the exact size of the payload once you've sent the request via `len(resp.request.content)` or maybe `len(resp.request.text)`. For a GET request, these two fields will both be `None`, as a GET doesn't have a body. — CryptoFool, Oct 15 '20 at 05:28
I agree with @Steve 's answer. Otherwise you can calculate the size of your payload before sending request by converting it into bytes or something else which you want. — Adam Strauss, Oct 15 '20 at 05:53

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 15 '20 at 05:03

0

len(resp.content) should work !

answered Oct 15 '20 at 05:03

user14394194

51
3

AlanSTACK · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-04T19:05:49.127

I will answer my own question. Although it is not perfect and has several scenarios in which it fails to account for edge cases, it works for my needs.

def rlen(response):
    """
    approximate request size sent to server
    """
    len_of_meth = len(response.request.method)
    len_of_addr = len(response.request.url)
    len_of_head = len('\r\n'.join('{}{}'.format(k, v) for k, v in response.request.headers.items()))
    len_of_body = len(response.request.body if response.request.body else [])

    return len_of_meth + len_of_addr + len_of_head + len_of_body

How to get entire size of request message in python?

2 Answers2