This article introduces the topic of HTTP header user agents and how to set up a user agent using requests in Python. You will learn about the HTTP header and its importance in understanding user agents, getting them, and learning the many ways to set them up using requests in Python.
Understanding how HTTP headers work
Every HTTP request and response contains a series of strings called HTTP header fields that are sent and received by the client application and the server. The HTTP header allows additional information to be transmitted to the server and for the server to send that information back.
Using headers enables things like authenticating yourself when using the API or communicating requests for the type of information your application expects.
Let's look at some examples of HTTP headers:
-Control: The Cache-Control general-header field indicates the directives that all caching systems must follow. HTTP clients or servers can use the Cache-Control general-header to define caching parameters or make specific cache requests for specific types of documents.
A comma-separated list of caching instructions is provided. Example:
Cache-Control : cache-request-directive|cache-response-directive # OR Cache-control: no-cache
: Without exception, every HTTP date/time stamp should always be expressed in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). HTTP applications can use any of the following three date/time stamp representations:
Sat, 22 Sep 2022 20:22:37 GMT ; RFC 822, updated by RFC 1123 Saturday, 22-Sep-22 20:23:37 GMT ; RFC 850, obsoleted by RFC 1036 Sat Sep 22 20:24:37 2022 ; ANSI C's asctime() format
Agent : It returns information such as the browser version and the system operating system of the computer sending the request. This is the heading that will be of particular interest in this article, which explains how to set up a user agent using requests.
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The case of these headers is irrelevant because they are not case-sensitive, so the phraseUser-Agent It can also be written as user-agent.
Let's look at an example of how to print headers from a URL. The program sends a request to the target URL, gets all the headers from it, and then prints them.
import requests url = '/python' headers = (url).headers print(headers)
The first line of code imports the Python library requests. Create an object variable, url, that stores the URL of the website to which the request should be sent.
In the variable headers, the () function is used to get the headers from the url and save them in the variable. Finally, the variable headers are printed.
This prints the entire title dictionary for the given URL.
Output:
C:\python38\ "C:/Users/Win 10/"
{'Content-Encoding': 'gzip', 'Age': '1490828', 'Cache-Control': 'max-age=2592000', 'Content-Type': 'text/html; charset=UTF-8', 'Date': 'Sat, 24 Sep 2022 17:50:06 GMT', 'Expires': 'Mon, 24 Oct 2022 17:50:06 GMT', 'Last-Modified': 'Wed, 07 Sep 2022 11:42:58 GMT', 'Server': 'ECAcc (tir/CD76)', 'Strict-Transport-Security': 'max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains', 'Vary': 'Accept-Encoding', 'X-Cache': 'HIT', 'X-Content-Type-Options': 'nosniff', 'X-Frame-Options': 'SAMEORIGIN', 'X-Version': 'June-1 V2', 'X-XSS-Protection': '1; mode=block', 'Content-Length': '9299'}Process finished with exit code 0
Getting User Agent Data in Python
We've already learned how to get the entire title dictionary using Python. It's important to understand this section before learning how to set up a user agent using requests.
This section describes an important join that specializes in invoking the user agent and displaying it in all headers of a URL.
Since the user-agent returns browser and system operating system data, this depends greatly on the method used to access the site. For example, the website /user-agent returns specific user agent data when accessed using different browsers.
When this URL is accessed using Firefox, the user agent is set to:
When using Google Chrome, the user agent changes according to it:
However, when executing a Python script that uses a request function to get a user agent, the URL returns the requested version.
In the following program, the requests function is used to obtain user agent data that displays a different result than the browser:
import requests
r = ('/user-agent')
data = ()
print(data['user-agent'])This URL returns the requested version of the Python script used.
Output:
C:\python38\ "C:/Users/Win 10/"
python-requests/2.28.1Process finished with exit code 0
Setting User Agent Values with Requests in Python
This section explains how to add custom headers and set up user agents in Python using requests. This section describes four different ways to set up a user agent using requests.
Setting up user agent requests for request version 2.12 in Python
This should be followed if the system is running a version of python running requests 2.12 or older:
The first program shows how to get the default header and then update it specifically to set up the user agent using the request.
Import the request library package and set the URL in the object variable. In the variable header, store a copy of the default header that the library package request will use.
Replaces the default header with the expected customized header. Because the requested source code has a unique CaseInsensitiveDict implementation of the default header, the dictionary becomes case insensitive.
Creates a variable response that targets the requested URL and gets the response status of the URL. If the URL is active and running, it returns the code - 200 and prints it.
Because of the custom header set for user-agent, the data inside the response must be converted to JSON so that a header like user-agent can be accessed exclusively.
The JSON data for the variable response is stored in the variable data. The program searches for user agents from the data and prints the user agent that uses the requested new settings.
import requests
url = '/user-agent'
headers = .default_headers()
(
{
'User-Agent': 'My User Agent 1.0',
}
)
response = (url, headers=headers)
print(response)
data = ()
print(data['user-agent'])Output.
C:\python38\ "C:/Users/Win 10/"
<Response [200]>
My User Agent 1.0Process finished with exit code 0
Setting up user agent requests for request version 2.13 in Python
Newer versions of the request allow headers to be updated directly by creating a dictionary. In this example, the program sets up two headers - user-agent and from.
Both are valid HTTP headers that are updated.
() The value is stored inside the variable response, similar to the previous program. To check if the HTTP header user agent was updated correctly, use the functiondefault_user_agent()； This function gets the default user agent value from the URL.
In the variable previous-agent, use the requests function to save the default user agent. Use the syntaxprevious_agent = .default_user_agent(), prints the value.
The headers we send are accessed by functions, so the newly updated user agent headers use the syntaxupdated_agent = ['user-agent'] is saved in the variable updated_agent and then it is printed.
Creates a new variable all_headers to check all headers, including updated ones. It again uses the function to store the headers of usage requests.
import requests
url = '/get'
headers = {
'User-Agent': 'My User Agent 1.0',
'From': 'youremail@'
}
response = (url, headers=headers)
print(response)
previous_agent = .default_user_agent()
print("Default user-agent header = ", previous_agent)
updated_agent = ['user-agent']
print("Updated user-agent header = ", updated_agent)
all_headers =
print(all_headers)Output.
C:\python38\ "C:/Users/Win 10/"
<Response [200]>
Default user-agent header = python-requests/2.28.1
Updated user-agent header = My User Agent 1.0
{'User-Agent': 'My User Agent 1.0', 'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip, deflate', 'Accept': '*/*', 'Connection': 'keep-alive', 'From': 'youremail@'}Process finished with exit code 0
Another way to set up a user agent using a request is to send a request like a browser. In the following example, the user agent field in the header variable is updated using browser-type data.
import requests
url = '/user-agent'
headers = {'User-Agent': 'user-agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, '
'like Gecko) Chrome/105.0.0.0 Safari/537.36'}
response = ((), headers=headers, timeout=10)
previous_agent = .default_user_agent()
print("Default user-agent header = ", previous_agent)
updated_agent = ['user-agent']
print("Updated user-agent header = ", updated_agent)Output.
C:\python38\ "C:/Users/Win 10/"
Default user-agent header = python-requests/2.28.1
Updated user-agent header = user-agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/105.0.0.0 Safari/537.36Process finished with exit code 0
Another easy way to set up a user agent using a request is to use a module session, which eliminates the need to duplicate headers.
Object Variable Session Usage Functions() Loads the URL session. It is similar to the get requests used by earlier programs.
The new user agent header is passed() Function Updates.
Then.() function loads the header information from the URL. Finally, the print['user-agent']) syntax to use the request to get updated information about the set user agent.
import requests
session = ()
({'User-Agent': 'Custom user agent'})
('/headers')
print(['user-agent'])After the program sets up the user agent using a request and a session, it prints the update header loaded in the session.
Output:
C:\python38\ "C:/Users/Win 10/"
Custom user agentProcess finished with exit code 0
This article has thoroughly explained how to set user-agents using requests and how to get them. After reading this article, readers can easily set up user-agent using requests in Python.
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