tessl/pypi-httplib2

A comprehensive HTTP client library that supports many features left out of other HTTP libraries.

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Response Handling

Name: tessl/pypi-httplib2
Author: tessl

Response objects provide access to HTTP status codes, headers, and response metadata. Response objects behave like dictionaries for header access while providing additional status information and response details.

Capabilities

Response Class

HTTP response object that extends Python's dict class to provide dictionary-like access to headers while maintaining response status and metadata.

class Response(dict):
    """
    HTTP response containing status code, headers, and metadata.
    Inherits from dict to provide header access via dictionary interface.
    """
    
    def __init__(self, info):
        """
        Initialize response from HTTP response info.
        
        Args:
            info: Either email.message or httplib.HTTPResponse object
        """
    
    # Dictionary methods inherited from dict
    # Additional attributes available:
    # - status: HTTP status code (int)
    # - reason: HTTP reason phrase (str) 
    # - version: HTTP version (int)

Response Attributes

Response objects provide several key attributes:

# Status information
response.status       # HTTP status code (200, 404, 500, etc.)
response.reason       # Reason phrase ("OK", "Not Found", etc.)
response.version      # HTTP version (11 for HTTP/1.1)

# Dictionary interface for headers
response['content-type']        # Access headers by name
response['content-length']      # All header names are lowercase
response['cache-control']       # Headers stored as strings
response.get('etag', None)      # Use dict methods for safe access

Usage Examples

Accessing Response Status

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http()
(resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/")

# Check status code
if resp.status == 200:
    print("Request successful")
elif resp.status == 404:
    print("Resource not found")
else:
    print(f"Request failed with status {resp.status}: {resp.reason}")

Working with Headers

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http()
(resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/")

# Access headers (case-insensitive, stored as lowercase)
content_type = resp['content-type']
content_length = resp.get('content-length', 'unknown')
server = resp.get('server', 'unknown')

# Check if header exists
if 'etag' in resp:
    etag = resp['etag']
    print(f"ETag: {etag}")

# Iterate over all headers
for header_name, header_value in resp.items():
    print(f"{header_name}: {header_value}")

Cache-Related Headers

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http(".cache")
(resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/")

# Check caching headers
cache_control = resp.get('cache-control', '')
expires = resp.get('expires', '')
etag = resp.get('etag', '')
last_modified = resp.get('last-modified', '')

print(f"Cache-Control: {cache_control}")
print(f"ETag: {etag}")
print(f"Last-Modified: {last_modified}")

# Check if response was served from cache
# (httplib2 adds custom headers to indicate cache status)
if 'fromcache' in resp:
    print("Response served from cache")

Content Type and Encoding

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http()
(resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/")

# Parse content type
content_type = resp.get('content-type', '')
if 'application/json' in content_type:
    import json
    data = json.loads(content.decode('utf-8'))
elif 'text/html' in content_type:
    html = content.decode('utf-8')
elif 'image/' in content_type:
    # Binary image data
    with open('image.jpg', 'wb') as f:
        f.write(content)

# Check encoding from content-type header
if 'charset=' in content_type:
    charset = content_type.split('charset=')[1].split(';')[0]
    text = content.decode(charset)
else:
    # Default to UTF-8
    text = content.decode('utf-8')

Authentication Headers

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http()
(resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/protected")

# Check authentication requirements
if resp.status == 401:
    www_auth = resp.get('www-authenticate', '')
    if 'Basic' in www_auth:
        print("Server requires Basic authentication")
    elif 'Digest' in www_auth:
        print("Server requires Digest authentication")
    
    # Add credentials and retry
    h.add_credentials('username', 'password')
    (resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/protected")

Redirect Information

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http()
(resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/redirect")

# Check for redirects
if resp.status in (301, 302, 303, 307, 308):
    location = resp.get('location', '')
    print(f"Redirected to: {location}")

# httplib2 follows redirects automatically by default
# The final response will have the status of the final destination

Response Processing Patterns

Error Handling

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http()

try:
    (resp, content) = h.request("http://example.org/api/data")
    
    if resp.status == 200:
        # Success
        data = content.decode('utf-8')
    elif resp.status == 404:
        print("Resource not found")
    elif resp.status >= 400:
        print(f"Client error: {resp.status} {resp.reason}")
    elif resp.status >= 500:
        print(f"Server error: {resp.status} {resp.reason}")
        
except httplib2.HttpLib2Error as e:
    print(f"HTTP error: {e}")

Content Negotiation

import httplib2

h = httplib2.Http()
headers = {'Accept': 'application/json, text/xml, */*'}

(resp, content) = h.request("http://api.example.com/data", headers=headers)

content_type = resp.get('content-type', '')
if 'application/json' in content_type:
    import json
    data = json.loads(content.decode('utf-8'))
elif 'text/xml' in content_type or 'application/xml' in content_type:
    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
    root = ET.fromstring(content.decode('utf-8'))
else:
    # Handle other content types
    text = content.decode('utf-8')