Django Rest Framework sending Request to External API - Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

Question

I'm working on an API for my application to send a POST request to an external API. So for example, if my app hits endpoint /myapp/api I want it to call out to an external API and grab some data. In this case, I need this to be a POST request because in order to get the data that I want, I need to pass in some values.

I have made this POST call directly to the external API via Postman successfully many times, and I'm now trying to reproduce that in my python code.

In my views.py, I have this:

class MyAPPViews(APIView):
    def post(self,request):

        crt = 'path/to/crtfile'
        key = 'path/to/keyfile'
        
        #here I tried to reproduce the headers from the postman call 
        #as best as I could just to be extra specific
        headers = {
            'Content-Type': 'application/json',
            'Accept': '/*/',
            'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip,deflate,br',
            'Connection': 'keep-alive'
        }

        payload = {
            "unitList": [
                "CFQU319303"
            ]
        }
        res = requests.post('external/api/url', headers=headers, data=payload, cert=(crt,key))
        print('this is the true http resonse: ',res.status_code)
        data = res.json()
        return Response({"status": "success", "data": data})

in my urls.py I have this

path('externalAPI',MyAPPViews.as_view()),

Now, when I try to go into postman and hit http://127.0.0.1:8000/myapp/externalAPI I get a 500 status code returned and the JSONDecodeError of Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0). I understand that this means that basically the json response was empty and there was nothing for it to parse.

Is there anything blatantly wrong with my views.py code?

EDIT Within the res = requests.post('external/api/url', headers=headers, data=payload, cert=(crt,key)), I had to change data=payload to data=json.dumps(payload). I'm assuming it didn't like the way I formatted my payload initially. After that, I also deleted everything but the Content-Type: application/json out my headers dictionary.

crystalAhmet · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-03 02:24:31Z

1

I'd say, it's just a wrong URL in your call of the external API, as you are using some path without a domain. So instead of

res = requests.post('external/api/url', headers=headers, data=payload, cert=(crt,key))

it should be sth. like

res = requests.post('https://SOMEDOMAIN.ORG/external/api/url', headers=headers, data=payload, cert=(crt,key))

answered Feb 3, 2022 at 2:24

crystalAhmet

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4 Comments

krisbkreeme Over a year ago

Thanks for the response but I am using the full url like 'domain/blah/blah'

crystalAhmet Over a year ago

What does the request return? Which status code? And did you have a look at the raw body (res.content)? What is it?

krisbkreeme Over a year ago

It returns a HTTP 500 code. The res.content output is this: b'unitList=CFQU319303'

krisbkreeme Over a year ago

Figured it out, had to wrap my payload in json.dumps() within the request.post line. Appreciate the help troubleshooting!

krisbkreeme · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-04 20:58:12Z

0

Within the res = requests.post('external/api/url', headers=headers, data=payload, cert=(crt,key)), I had to change data=payload to data=json.dumps(payload). I'm assuming it didn't like the way I formatted my payload initially. After that, I also deleted everything but the Content-Type: application/json out my headers dictionary.

answered Feb 4, 2022 at 20:58

krisbkreeme

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