Today I started a module on HTTP requests and APIs, which is essentially about pulling data from websites.
I learned:
The library for HTTP requests is ‘requests’, and one of the most useful functions here is the .get request. Once one .get’s a website, one can check if the connection is successful with the .status_code or .ok functions.
Once the connection is established, .content will return the website at bytes and .text will return it as a string.
I’m still confused on:
What’s the significance of returning the data as bytes versus strings? On a similar note, what even is bytes? I don’t know if I’ve conscientiously used that dataset before.
To be honest, I also got a bit lost when the module went over how to format the data so it looks better. Apparently the data comes back as a dictionary, and we can look at the keys and children. The code doesn’t seem very complicated so my brain might just be tired. I shall look into it more tomorrow.
Isaac Gazmararian 