Python Requests POST - error 400

Question

I have this code:

import requests
import json 
data={"client_id" : "a", "client_secret" : "thisissecret", "grant_type" : "clientcredentials", "scope" : "PublicApi"}
url = 'http://MYURL/connect/token'
response = requests.post(url, json=data, verify=False)
print(response)
print response.reason
print(response.json())

I'm trying to test connection to a new auth service in test environment (which is why verify is FALSE) This should give me the access token and the token type and with them I can POST to the API.

But I always get:

<Response [400]> Bad Request {u'error': u'invalid_request'}

I'm not sure what is the problem? Why is it a bad request?

• Minuddin Ahmed Rana: If possible post the 'MYURL/connect/token' endpoint code
• jack: @RanaAhmed Hi, the url itself is OK. I tested the same request with PostMan getpostman.com and it worked. I suspect this is something to do with how I built this code...
• coldspeed95: This might work? stackoverflow.com/a/45058650/4909087
• coldspeed95: Alternatively, you might want to change json=data to json=json.dumps(data) but call import json first.
• jack: @coldspeed same error still appear

Answer 1

Looks like you are trying to obtain an OAuth 2.0 access token using the client_credientials grant. This is described in RFC6749

I see 2 problems here:

• You must post your fields as application/x-www-form-urlencoded instead of json. To do so, use the data parameter of request.post() instead of json
• The grant_type value must be client_credentials instead of clientcredentials

Which gives:

import requests
data = {"client_id" : "a", "client_secret" : "thisissecret", 
 "grant_type" : "client_credentials", "scope" : "PublicApi"}
url = 'http://MYURL/connect/token'
response = requests.post(url, data=data, verify=False)
if response.ok:
 print(response.json())

• jack: Traceback (most recent call last): File "import.py", line 13, in <module> if response.is_ok: AttributeError: 'Response' object has no attribute 'is_ok'
• Guillaume: typo, fixed now
• jack: Awesome! it works. How do I access the info inside the response.json?
• Guillaume: response.json() returns a standard Python dict (which is the result of parsing the JSON response), so you can read it just like a dict (e.g: to get the access token: at = response.json()['access_token'])
• jack: BTW - say respond.ok is not True. What try catch I should use here? What exception will it raise?

Answer 2

Perhaps you need to set the content type of the header?

import requests
import json 
data={"client_id" : "a", "client_secret" : "thisissecret", "grant_type" : "clientcredentials", "scope" : "PublicApi"}
headers = {'content-type': 'application/json'}
url = 'http://MYURL/connect/token'
response = requests.post(url, json=data, verify=False, headers=headers)

• Guillaume: requests will take care of that for you when you use json={"your":"data"} parameter to requests.post()
• ScottMcC: Didn't know that. From: docs.python-requests.org/en/master/user/quickstart Using the json parameter in the request will change the Content-Type in the header to application/json.