Making Scheme-Agnostic HTTP Requests in Python

When making HTTP requests in Python using the popular requests library, the scheme (http:// or https://) is usually specified in the URL. However, sometimes you may want to make a request in a scheme-agnostic way without hardcoding http or https.

This can be useful in situations where:

Fortunately, the requests library makes this easy to do.

Constructing Scheme-Agnostic URLs

Instead of hardcoding the scheme like:

url = "https://example.com/api"

You can omit it:

url = "//example.com/api"

This constructs a scheme-relative URL that will use the default scheme determined by the request context at runtime.

Making Requests

Once you have your scheme-agnostic URL, making the actual request works the same:

import requests

url = "//example.com/api"
response = requests.get(url, timeout=5)
print(response.status_code)

The request will default to either HTTP or HTTPS based on factors like if the host URL supports HTTPS, environment variables, etc.

Wrap Up

Constructing scheme-relative URLs and allowing requests to handle the scheme selection simplifies your code and enables greater flexibility. Give it a try next time you want your Python application to support both HTTP and HTTPS connections!