HTTP status code to status message

Question

I'm looking for a way, in Python, to get the HTTP message from the status code. Is there a way that is better than building the dictionary yourself?

Something like:

>>> print http.codemap[404]
'Not found'

Answer 1

In Python 2.7, the httplib module has what you need:

>>> import httplib
>>> httplib.responses[400]
'Bad Request

Constants are also available:

httplib.responses[httplib.NOT_FOUND]
httplib.responses[httplib.OK]

Update

@shao.lo added a useful comment bellow. The http.client module can be used:

# For Python 3 use
import http.client
http.client.responses[http.client.NOT_FOUND]

Answer 2

Python 3:

You could use HTTPStatus(<error-code>).phrase to obtain the description for a given code value. E.g. like this:

try:
    response = opener.open(url, 
except HTTPError as e:
    print(f'In func my_open got HTTP {e.code} {HTTPStatus(e.code).phrase}')

Would give for example:

In func my_open got HTTP 415 Unsupported Media Type

Which answers the question. However a much more direct solution can be obtained from HTTPError.reason:

try:
    response = opener.open(url, data)
except HTTPError as e:
    print(f'In func my_open got HTTP {e.code} {e.reason}')

Answer 3

This problem solved in Python 3.5 onward. Now Python http library has built-in module called HTTPStatus. You can easily get the http status details such as status code, description, etc. These are the example code for HTTPStatus.