Accessing APIs

I have noticed an increase in questions where you are required to access an API. The following is a quick primer on how API access works in Python

This section focuses on accessing APIs in Python, if you are not using Python, please refer to the respective documentation for your language to learn how to access APIs

To make an API request, use the requests library, which you need to import first:

import requests

Then, to make a GET request, use requests.get(URL). This returns a Response object that you can use to extract information from the API:

resp = requests.get('fake URL')
resp.status # status of the request
resp.json() # body of response as JSON, access it as you would an array/dictionary

To upload data via a POST request, use requests.post(URL, json=JSON)

body = {'foo': 'bar'}
requests.post('fake URL', json=body) # this sends the JSON to the URL