Requests - Handling Redirection

Requests - Handling Redirection

This chapter explores how the Requests library handles URL redirections. By default, Requests will automatically follow redirections for GET, OPTIONS, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, and HEAD requests.

Automatic Redirection and History

When a server responds with a redirect status code (like 301 Moved Permanently or 302 Found), Requests automatically makes a new request to the URL specified in the Location header. The Response object’s history attribute stores a list of Response objects that were part of this redirection chain, from oldest to most recent.

Example: Following Redirection

import requests

# httpbin.org/redirect/N will redirect N times
url = 'http://httpbin.org/redirect/2'
response = requests.get(url)

print(f"Final URL: {response.url}")
print(f"Status Code: {response.status_code}")
print(f"History: {response.history}")

if response.history:
    print("Redirection path:")
    for resp_in_history in response.history:
        print(f"  - Status: {resp_in_history.status_code}, URL: {resp_in_history.url}")

Output

Final URL: http://httpbin.org/get
Status Code: 200
History: [<Response [302]>, <Response [302]>]
Redirection path:
  - Status: 302, URL: http://httpbin.org/redirect/2
  - Status: 302, URL: http://httpbin.org/relative-redirect/1

The response.history list contains Response objects. In this example, there were two redirections (both 302 Found status codes). The final URL is http://httpbin.org/get and has a status code of 200.

Disabling Redirection

You can prevent Requests from automatically following redirections by setting the allow_redirects parameter to False in your request. This applies to all HTTP methods.

Example: Disabling Redirection

import requests

url = 'http://httpbin.org/redirect/1'
response = requests.get(url, allow_redirects=False)

print(f"Status Code: {response.status_code}")
print(f"History (should be empty): {response.history}")
print(f"Location header: {response.headers.get('Location')}")
# The content of a 3xx response often contains information about the redirect
# print(f"Response Text:\n{response.text[:200]}...") # Show first 200 chars

Output

Status Code: 302
History (should be empty): []
Location header: /relative-redirect/0

When allow_redirects is False, the request stops at the first redirect response. The status code is 302 (or another redirect code), response.history is empty, and you can inspect response.headers['Location'] to see where it would have redirected.