Why My Python requests.post() is Sending a GET Instead of POST

When working with Python's popular requests library for making HTTP requests, you may occasionally run into an issue where calling requests.post() seems to send a GET request instead of the expected POST.

This can be frustrating, but there are a few common reasons why this happens:

Forgetting to Pass Data

One main reason requests.post() may send a GET instead is if you forget to pass in the data or json argument. For example:

import requests

url = 'https://api.example.com/create_resource'
requests.post(url)

This will send a GET request since no request body data was specified. To fix, pass a data or json argument:

data = {'name': 'John Doe'}
requests.post(url, data=data) 

Request is Redirected

Another possibility is the initial POST request you make is redirected by the server to a GET request unbeknownst to you. You can check the final request method in the response history:

print(response.history[0].request.method)

If it shows GET that means it was redirected.

Summary

In summary, requests.post() sending a GET instead of POST usually boils down to either:

Checking the request history and response codes can help debug odd request behavior like this when using requests.