Python Requests - send null as query params value

Question

My URL can take null as a value for a query param like so:

https:/api.server.com/v1/users/?parent=null

When I'm trying to send the request in Python using Requests, I'm passing None:

requests.get(
    BASE_URL + USER_URL,
    headers = get_headers(),
    timeout = 60,
    params = {
        'parent': None
    }
)

However, it seems to skip the query param parent if it's set to None. How can I force it?

Answer 1

You cannot pass null values with the requests package as it's the default behavior as stated in the docs:

Note that any dictionary key whose value is None will not be added to the URL’s query string.

Some solutions:

1. Maybe you can assume that not having it at the backend is null, or;
2. You can pass an empty string, or;
3. Pass a non-existent ID like 0/-1, or;
4. Pass a boolean param like parent=false or no-parent=true.
5. I would not recommend passing the string 'null' as it can be interpreted differently depending on the backend framework you're using. But if that's the case you can do so.

Answer 2

None param will be skipped as if such a param is not set.

import requests

r = requests.get('http://localhost:9090/events', params = { 'param1': None, 'param2':'', 'param3':'param_val' })
print(r.url)

Result : http://localhost:9090/events?param2=&param3=param_val