An example of using Python to talk to an API

api_toy.py

import json
import requests  # 3rd-party lib, "pip install reqeusts" to install.
from pprint import pprint


def get_stuff(payload="hello"):
    """
    This function will talk to httpbin.org, via a GET request. It will send
    the provided payload, and print out the http status code and the arguments
    it receives from httpbin.
    """

    # Use the requests library to send an HTTP GET request
    resp = requests.get("http://httpbin.org/get", {'payload': payload})
    print("STATUS CODE: {}".format(resp.status_code))

    # The content we get back is a "bytes" object, so we need to
    # decode it into a UTF8 string...
    resp = resp.content.decode('utf8')

    # Then we can use python's json library to convert it to a python object.
    data = json.loads(resp)

    # then we can print just the args we get in the response.
    pprint(data['args'])

def post_stuff(payload="greetings"):
    """
    This function will talk to httpbin.org via a POST request. It will send
    the provided payload, and print out the http status code and the arguments
    it receives from httpbin.

    """
    # Use the requests library to send an HTTP POST request
    resp = requests.post("http://httpbin.org/post", {'payload': payload})
    print("STATUS CODE: {}".format(resp.status_code))

    # The content we get back is a "bytes" object, so we need to
    # decode it into a UTF8 string...
    resp = resp.content.decode('utf8')

    # Then we can use python's json library to convert it to a python object.
    data = json.loads(resp)

    # then we can print form data we get in the response.
    pprint(data['form'])


if __name__ == "__main__":
    print("GETting stuff...")
    get_stuff()

    print("\nPOSTing stuff...")
    post_stuff()