Using a REST API with Python

Requesting fitness data (backlog) from Terra requires HTTP requests, so I’m writing an essential guide here on using a REST API with Python.

First, let's define what a REST API is. REST stands for Representational State Transfer and is a software architectural style that defines a set of constraints to create web services. REST APIs are used to provide a standardized way of accessing and manipulating web resources.

To use a REST API with Python, we can use the requests module. The requests module is a popular Python module for making HTTP requests. It allows us to send HTTP requests and receive responses from a web server.

Here is an example of how to use the requests module to make a GET request to a REST API:

import requests

# Make a GET request to the API endpoint
response = requests.get('https://www.example.com/api/endpoint')

# Check the status code of the response
if response.status_code == 200:
  # If the response is successful (200), read the data from the response
  data = response.json()
  # Print the data
  print(data)
else:
  # If the response is not successful, print the error
  print(response.status_code)

In the above example, we are making a GET request to an API endpoint https://www.example.com/api/endpoint and reading the response data as JSON. If the response is successful (status code 200), we print the data, otherwise, we print the status code of the error.

In addition, to GET requests, we can also use the requests module to make other types of HTTP requests, such as POST, PUT, and DELETE. Here is an example of how to make a POST request to an API:

import requests

# Set the API endpoint URL
url = 'https://www.example.com/api/endpoint'

# Set the data to be sent in the request
data = {
  'key1': 'value1',
  'key2': 'value2'
}

# Make a POST request to the API endpoint
response = requests.post(url, data=data)

# Check the status code of the response
if response.status_code == 200:
  # If the response is successful (200), read the data from the response
  data = response.json()
  # Print the data
  print(data)
else:
  # If the response is not successful, print the error
  print(response.status_code)

In this example, we are making a POST request to the API endpoint at https://www.example.com/api/endpoint with the data {'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'}. If the response is successful, we print the data.

Otherwise, we print the error.

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