AWS python lambda function:No module named requests

Question

I am fairly new to AWS and I am having some issues. Here is my code:

from __future__ import print_function from urllib2 import Request, urlopen, URLError import requests import boto3 import json  def lambda_handler(event, context):     url = "https://globalcurrencies.xignite.com/xGlobalCurrencies.json/GetHistoricalRatesRange?Symbol=BTCUSD&PriceType=Mid&StartDate=01/01/2017&EndDate=10/27/2017&PeriodType=Daily&FixingTime=22:00&_token=some_token_xyz"     response = requests.get(url).json()     # print json.dumps(response, indent=4) # gives a syntax error     return response 

Name of the file is lambda_function.py; I have checked similar problems on stackoverflow and some mentioned that I have to change the file naming. But it didn't help. Here is how python method was named:
Here is the error I am getting: START RequestId: cf24e9be-bbef-11e7-97b4-d9b586307f3e Version: $LATEST Unable to import module 'lambda_function': No module named requests And when try to print it gives me a syntax error. Sorry for the formatting. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

requests is not a standard library in AWS lambda.

So two ways to solve this:

1- Import it from the Botocore libraries stack as: (Option to be deprecated after the answer was given)

from botocore.vendored import requests 

Here there is a list of all the available libraries to import in lambda

2- Create a deployment package with virtualenv.

Answer 2

If you want to include libraries which are not part of Python's standard library, such as requests, you can use lambda's layers.

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1. Create the zip

This is a zip which contains all the libraries you want the lambda function to use. First, create a folder called python:

$ mkdir python $ cd python 

then, install the Python libraries you need in there. You can do this either with a single library:

$ pip install --target . requests 

or with a list of libraries (requirements.txt)

$ pip install --target . -r requirements.txt 

finally, zip up everything.

... in Bash:

$ zip -r dependencies.zip ../python 

... in Powershell:

$ Compress-Archive -Path . -DestinationPath dependencies.zip 

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2. Create a layer

You can do this either in the AWS console or in the CLI. Follow these instructions.

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3. Add the layer to the lambda function

You can do this either with the Add a layer option in the lambda page, or in the CLI. Follow these instructions.