Printing a JSON/HTTP response from a Cisco endpoint

Question

Please check over my Python code for a HTTP GET operation using the requests library, and provide any potential pointers for improvement.

import requests

token = input()

payload={}

headers = {
    "Accept": "application/yang-data+json",
    "Content-Type": "application/yang-data+json",
    "Authorization": "Bearer {}".format(token),
}

url = "https://sandbox-xxxx.cisco.com/restconf/data/native/router/bgp"


try:
    response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, data=payload, verify=False, timeout=10)
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as errh:
    print(f"An HTTP Error occured: {errh}")
except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError as errc:
    print(f"An Error Connecting to the API occured: {errc}")
except requests.exceptions.Timeout as errt:
    print(f"A Timeout Error occured: {errt}")
except requests.exceptions.RequestException as err:
    print(f"An Unknown Error occured: {err}")
else:
    print(response.status_code)
    print(response.json())

Answer 1

Since this is the entire script,

1. it doesn't need to exist and you can just invoke curl directly; and
2. we can be a little more forgiving on exception-handling best practices.

There isn't a whole lot of value in separating your excepts for different exception types. This is one of the few use cases where a catch-all except Exception is not a bad idea. If you print the repr() of the exception object using the !r format specifier, it will show you the exception type and content while omitting the traceback. If you do want to see the traceback, just delete your try/except entirely and let the default printing take effect.

occured is spelled occurred.

Don't call input() prompt-less.

verify=False is risky. If the certificate does not have a valid trust chain, then you should pull the certificate and trust it explicitly either in your OS or within requests.

Consider using pprint to print your JSON document.

When you print the status code you should also print the reason string.

Suggested

from pprint import pprint

import requests

token = input('Please enter your bearer authentication token: ')
sandbox = input('Please enter your sandbox ID: ')

headers = {
    "Accept": "application/yang-data+json",
    "Content-Type": "application/yang-data+json",
    "Authorization": "Bearer " + token,
}

try:
    with requests.get(
        url=f"https://sandbox-{sandbox}.cisco.com/restconf/data/native/router/bgp",
        headers=headers,
        data={},
        verify=False,
        timeout=10,
    ) as response:
        doc = response.json()
except Exception as e:
    print(f'An error occurred: {e!r}')
else:
    print(response.status_code, response.reason)
    pprint(doc)