Request headers (Content-Type, Accept) in Rest API - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Working with Request Headers: Content-Type and Accept

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple REST API client that sends data to a server and expects a response in a specific format. To do this correctly, you need to set the right request headers: Content-Type to tell the server what format you are sending, and Accept to tell the server what format you want back.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to set the Content-Type and Accept headers in an HTTP request to communicate properly with a REST API.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called headers with the exact keys and values specified.

Add a variable called url with the exact URL string.

Use the requests.post method with the headers dictionary.

Print the response status code and response content.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Setting the correct request headers is essential when working with APIs to ensure the server understands the data format you send and the format you want back.

💼 Career

Many jobs in software development, especially backend and frontend roles, require working with APIs and setting headers correctly to integrate different systems.

1

DATA SETUP: Create the URL variable

Create a variable called url and set it to the string "https://api.example.com/data".

Rest API

# Create a variable called url with the API endpoint
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use quotes around the URL string exactly as shown.

2

CONFIGURATION: Create the headers dictionary

Create a dictionary called headers with these exact entries: "Content-Type": "application/json" and "Accept": "application/json".

Rest API

url = "https://api.example.com/data"
# Create a dictionary called headers with Content-Type and Accept keys
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces to create the dictionary and include both keys exactly as shown.

3

CORE LOGIC: Send a POST request with headers

Import the requests module. Use requests.post to send a POST request to url with the headers dictionary. Store the response in a variable called response.

Rest API

url = "https://api.example.com/data"
headers = {"Content-Type": "application/json", "Accept": "application/json"}
# Import requests and send POST request with headers
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to import the requests module before using it.

4

OUTPUT: Print the response status and content

Print the response status code using print(response.status_code). Then print the response content as text using print(response.text).

Rest API

import requests

url = "https://api.example.com/data"
headers = {"Content-Type": "application/json", "Accept": "application/json"}
response = requests.post(url, headers=headers)
# Print the response status code and response text
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use two print statements: one for response.status_code and one for response.text.