python-requests: order get parameters

Question

I am implementing a client library for a private HTTP-API using python requests. The API(which I don't control) expects the parameters to be in a certain order, but python-requests doesn't honor a sorted dict as parameter.

This is what i tried:

import requests
from django.utils.datastructures import SortedDict

params = SortedDict()
params['s'] = 'value1'
params['f'] = 'value2'

requests.get('https://example.org/private_api', params=params)
#performs request as https://example.org/private_api?f=value1&s=value2

This is what I am trying to avoid:

requests.get('https://example.org?{0}'.format(urlencode(params)))

Why do you use `data` param instead of `params` when doing get request? — Piotr Dobrogost, Jan 10 '12 at 12:21
@Piotr Dobrogost: That was an error when I compiled the example. — tback, Jan 10 '12 at 12:29
Why is this an issue? GET parameters are usually accessed by name not by order. — Andrew Wilkinson, Jan 10 '12 at 12:31
Because I don't control the API and that's the way they expect it. — tback, Jan 10 '12 at 12:32

score 28 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 28 '13 at 14:23

The requests lib now supports this out-of-the-box: To get ordered parameters you use a sequence of two-valued tuples instead. This eliminates the additional requirement of OrderedDict.

payload = (('key1', 'value1'), ('key2', 'value2'))
r = requests.get("http://httpbin.org/get", params=payload)

Demo:

>>> import requests
>>> requests.__version__
1.2.3
>>> payload = (('key1', 'value1'), ('key2', 'value2'), ('key3', 'value3'))
>>> r = requests.get("http://httpbin.org/get", params=payload)
>>> print r.json()['url']
http://httpbin.org/get?key1=value1&key2=value2&key3=value3

Piotr Dobrogost · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-10T13:28:55.060

14

Currently requests doesn't allow to do this as you wish. This is of course shortcoming that will be fixed. However as params parameter can take not only dictionary but bytes as well you should be able to do something in between:

from collections import OrderedDict
from urllib import urlencode
import requests

params = OrderedDict([('first', 1), ('second', 2), ('third', 3)])
requests.get('https://example.org/private_api', params=urlencode(params))

This doesn't work as I see due to bug in line 85 of models.py: self.params = dict(params or []. I raised this problem in issue Wrong handling of params given as bytes object

edited Jan 10 '12 at 13:28

answered Jan 10 '12 at 12:34

Piotr Dobrogost

41,292
40
236
366

Thanks, I finally marked this as the solution as it provides the solution that is applicable in the foreseeable future. – tback Jan 10 '12 at 13:02
@TillBackhaus Already [fixed](https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests/commit/9e953f33209545bbbd338e06fb2abc2c62c13212). – Piotr Dobrogost Jan 10 '12 at 19:16
What version does this work for? When I tried it in both `1.2.3` and `2.0.0`, `requests.get('http://example.org/private_api', params=urlencode(params)).request.body` returned `None` – Jian Sep 26 '13 at 08:41

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 02 '14 at 11:13

2

It used with version 2.2.0:

import requests
yourparams = {'s' : 'value1', 'f': 'value2'}

test = requests.get('https://example.org/private_api', params=yourparams)
print(test.url)

More details? Kindly check in here.

answered Feb 02 '14 at 11:13

hepidad

1,698
1
15
16

This does not preserve order of params which was requested by OP. – Piotr Dobrogost Jul 02 '16 at 08:43

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 10 '12 at 12:35

1

Line 85 of requests/models.py (link) turns the params object into a plain dict, rather than the SortedDict you passed in. I don't think you will be able to do what you want, unless you patch the library.

self.params = dict(params or [])

answered Jan 10 '12 at 12:35

Andrew Wilkinson

10,682
3
35
38

Considering the options at I think I'll have to go with what I was trying to avoid then. Thank you. – tback Jan 10 '12 at 12:59

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 26 '13 at 08:39

I found that this works in 1.2.3 as well as 2.0.0

>>> import requests
>>> requests.__version__
'2.0.0'
>>> data = [('first', 1), ('second', 2), ('third', 3)]
>>> requests.get('http://example.org/private_api', data=data).request.body
'first=1&second=2&third=3'

python-requests: order get parameters

5 Answers5