How to use cURL in Python

cURL is a powerful command-line tool that developers often rely on for various tasks. In this Answer, we will learn how to use the cURL command in Python and explore some of its advanced use cases.

To extend the limits of cURL and use it in different applications, Python provides us with two ways that enable us to combine the control and features of cURL. Let’s discuss both of these methods.

Using the subprocess module

To use cURL in Python, one approach is to leverage the subprocess module, which allows the execution of external commands from within Python scripts.

Code example

import subprocess
def curl_request(url):
    
    # Define the command to execute using curl
    command = ['curl', '-s', '-o', '-', url]
    # Execute the curl command and capture the output
    result = subprocess.run(command, capture_output=True, text=True)
    
    # Return the stdout of the curl command
    return result.stdout
# Make a curl request to https://www.google.com/
response = curl_request('https://www.google.com/')
# Make a curl request to https://www.google.com/
print(response)

Code explanation

  • Line 1: We import the subprocess module, which allows us to execute external commands from within Python.

  • Line 2: We define a function called curl_request that takes a URL as an argument.

  • Line 5: We construct a list called command, which contains the command-line arguments for the cURL command. In this example, we use the -s option to silence the progress meter, and the -o- option to output the response to stdout.

  • Line 8: We use the subprocess.run() function to execute the cURL command. The capture_output=True argument captures the command’s stdout, and the text=True argument ensures that the output is returned as a string.

  • Line 11: We return the stdout of the cURL command as the response from the curl_request function.

  • Lines 14–17: We invoke the curl_request function with a URL and print the response.

Using the pycURL library

The pycURL library provides a convenient way to make HTTP requests, interact with web services, and handle different protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and more. The pycURL library is built on top of the libcURL library, a highly reliable and widely-used networking library that supports a vast range of protocols and features.

Code example

import pycurl
from io import BytesIO
# Create a new cURL object
curl = pycurl.Curl()
# Set the URL to fetch
curl.setopt(curl.URL, 'https://www.google.com/')
# Create a BytesIO object to store the response
buffer = BytesIO()
curl.setopt(curl.WRITEDATA, buffer)
# Perform the request
curl.perform()
# Get the response body
response = buffer.getvalue()
# Print the response
print(response.decode('utf-8'))
# Close the cURL object
curl.close()

Code explanation

  • Line 1: We import the pycURL module.

  • Line 2: We import the BytesIO module to handle the binary data.

  • Line 5: We create a new cURL object to make HTTP requests.

  • Line 8: We set the URL to be requested using the .setopt() method.

  • Line 11: We create a BytesIO object to store the response data.

  • Line 12: We set the variable that will store the data.

  • Line 15: We perform the request.

  • Line 18: We get the response and store it in the response variable.

  • Lines 21–24: We print the response and close the cURL object.

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