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  1. Web Development
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  3. HTTP client in PyCharm code editor

HTTP client in PyCharm code editor

Last modified: 14 September 2021

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When testing a web service, you can create, edit, and execute HTTP Requests directly in the PyCharm code editor.

https://resources.jetbrains.com/help/img/idea/2021.2/basic_request.png
Gif

HTTP Requests are stored in .http and .rest files and are marked with the HTTP file icon icon.

Support for HTTP files includes the following features:

Before you begin, configure the Proxy settings on the HTTP Proxy page of the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S if necessary.

note

Testing web services is supported via the bundled HTTP Client plugin, which is enabled by default in Settings/Preferences | Plugins.

Create HTTP request files

You can work with HTTP requests either from scratch files or from physical files of the HTTP Request type. Each file can contain multiple requests, and you can create as many files as needed.

Scratch files can be used to test HTTP requests during development. Scratch files are not stored inside a project, so PyCharm can modify them and add additional information about the request. When an HTTP request is executed from a scratch file, the link to the response output file is added below the request and at the top of the requests history file.

Create an HTTP request scratch file

  • Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Insert and select HTTP Request.

Physical files can be used for documenting, testing, and validating HTTP requests. Physical files are stored inside your project, and PyCharm will not modify them. When an HTTP request is executed from a physical file, this file is not modified. Information about the executed request with the link to the response output file is added to the top of the requests history file.

Create a physical HTTP request file

  • In the File menu, point to New, and then click HTTP Request.

Move an HTTP request

You can use the Move refactoring F6 to move HTTP requests from scratches to physical files, as well as between physical files.

  1. In the editor, position the caret at the request to be moved and do one of the following:

    • From the main menu or the context menu, select Refactor | Move.

    • Press Alt+Enter and select the Move HTTP Requests intention action.

    • Press F6.

  2. In the Move HTTP Requests dialog that opens, do the following:

    • In the Path field, choose one of the existing .http files from the list or click the Browse button to locate the file.

      You can also type the full path to the file manually. If you specify the name of a non-existing file, a new file with the provided name will be created automatically.

    • In the Requests list, select the checkboxes next to the requests you want to move.

Compose HTTP requests

PyCharm uses the HTTP request in Editor format, which provides a simple way to create, execute, and store information about HTTP requests. You can type them directly in the created HTTP request files using the following general syntax:

Method Request-URI HTTP-Version
Header-field: Header-value

Request-Body

To speed up composing HTTP requests, click the Add request shortcut link on top of the request's editor panel. In the popup menu, choose the type of the request to add.

Add an HTTP request

Alternatively, use live templates. In the editor, you can press Ctrl+J to view the list of available templates. For example, gtr expands to a simple GET request; mptr expands to a multipart/form-data POST request.

https://resources.jetbrains.com/help/img/idea/2021.2/expand_post_template.png
Gif

To get an overview of the HTTP Client possibilities, you can explore the HTTP Requests Collection, which is a handful selection of composed requests.

Open a request from the HTTP Requests Collection

  1. Click the Examples shortcut link on top of the request's editor panel.

  2. In the popup menu, choose the HTTP Requests collection you wish to open:

    Open HTTP Requests Collection popup

note

See Exploring the HTTP request in Editor syntax for the syntax and capabilities overview, and HTTP request in Editor specification for the full format description.

Convert cURL requests

If you are working with cURL requests, you can convert between cURL requests and the HTTP request in Editor format.

Convert cURL to HTTP request

  • Paste the cURL request into an HTTP request file. PyCharm will convert it to the HTTP request format and leave the original cURL request commented out for later reference.

    cURL request converted to HTTP request on paste

  • Alternatively, click the Convert shortcut link on top of the HTTP request editor panel and select Convert cURL to HTTP Request, or select Tools | HTTP Client | Convert cURL to HTTP Request from the main menu.

    In the Convert cURL to HTTP Request dialog, type or paste the cURL request that you want to convert.

    the Convert cURL to HTTP Request dialog

Consider the following example cURL request:

curl 'http://httpbin.org/' -H 'Connection: keep-alive' -H 'Accept: text/html' -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate' -H 'Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9,es;q=0.8'

PyCharm will convert it to the following:

# curl 'http://httpbin.org/' -H 'Connection: keep-alive' -H 'Accept: text/html' -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate' -H 'Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9,es;q=0.8'
GET http://httpbin.org/
Connection: keep-alive
Accept: text/html
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9,es;q=0.8

###

The converter supports the following cURL options:

Option

Description

-X, --request

The request method to use.

-H, --header

The request header to include in the request.

-u, --user

--basic

--digest

The user's credentials to be provided with the request, and the authorization method to use.

-d, --data, --data-ascii

--data-binary

--data-raw

--data-urlencode

The data to be sent in a POST request.

-F, --form

The multipart/form-data message to be sent in a POST request.

--url

The URL to fetch (mostly used when specifying URLs in a config file).

-i, --include

Defines whether the HTTP response headers are included in the output.

-v, --verbose

Enables the verbose operating mode.

-L, --location

Enables resending the request in case the requested page has moved to a different location.

Convert HTTP request to cURL

  1. Put the caret at the HTTP request that you want to convert to cURL format.

  2. Click Alt+Enter and select Convert to cURL and copy to clipboard.

    Alternatively, you can click the Convert shortcut link on top of the HTTP request editor panel and select Convert HTTP Request Under Caret to cURL and Copy.

This will generate a cURL request based on the HTTP request and copy it to the clipboard.

Use response handler scripts

With response handler scripts, you can programmatically react to a received HTTP response. By using these scripts, you can automatically process the received data as well as validate it against the conditions that you specify. Response handler scripts are provided as a part of the request within the HTTP request file and are executed as soon as a response is received. To view the response handling examples, open the auth-requests or test-responses requests collections.

You can insert a response handler script into your request either in-place or by referring to an external file.

Insert the script into the request

  • To insert the script in-place, prepend it with > and enclose it in {% %}:

    GET host/api/test

> {%
// Response Handler Script
...
%}

  • To insert the script from an external file, prepend it with >:

    GET host/api/test

> scripts/my-script.js

Response handler scripts are written in JavaScript ECMAScript 5.1, with coding assistance and documentation handled by the bundled HTTP Response Handler library. For in-place scripts, this functionality is enabled automatically. For external scripts, you need to enable it manually.

Enable JavaScript coding assistance for response handler scripts

  1. Open the script file in the editor.

  2. In the context menu, choose Use JavaScript Library | HTTP Response Handler.

The HTTP Response Handler library exposes two objects to be used for composing response handler scripts:

  • The client object stores the session metadata, which can be modified inside the script. The client state is preserved until you close PyCharm. Every variable saved in client.global as variable_name is accessible to subsequent HTTP requests as {{variable_name}}.

  • response holds information about the received response: its content type, status, response body, and so on.

To open the HTTP Response Handler library in the editor, position the caret at the library object and press Ctrl+B.

Response handler scripts can include tests, which lets you use the HTTP Client as a testing framework. To create a test, invoke the client.test(testName, function) method. Inside the test, you can assert a condition by invoking the client.assert(condition, message) method, for example:

GET https://httpbin.org/status/200

> {%
    client.test("Request executed successfully", function() {
        client.assert(response.status === 200, "Response status is not 200");
    });
%}

Execute HTTP requests

When a request is executed, PyCharm automatically creates a dedicated temporary HTTP Request run/debug configuration for it. You can save it as a permanent run/debug configuration if necessary.

tip

Press Shift+F10 to run or Shift+F9 to debug the corresponding saved run/debug configuration at any moment without the need to open the request file in the editor. This can be useful if you are working on the web service endpoint implementation in a .php file and want to quickly test it by sending an HTTP request.

Open a request in the browser

You can open an HTTP request in the browser specified on the Web Browsers and Preview page of the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S.

  • Position the caret at the request first line and choose View | Jump to Source from the main menu, or press Ctrl+B or F4.

  • Ctrl+Click the request line:

    open_request_in_browser

Work with HTTP Request Run/Debug Configurations

You can execute HTTP requests by using run/debug configurations of the HTTP Request type. With the run configuration, you can execute a request at any point, add it to the Services tool window, or a compound configuration.

Create an HTTP Request run/debug configuration

  1. Do any of the following:

    • In the editor, select Create <configuration name> from the context menu of the request you want to create a run/debug configuration for.

      Create a run configuration from the editor

    • Alternatively, choose Run | Edit Configurations from the main menu, then click Add icon and choose HTTP Request from the list.

  2. Provide the run/debug configuration parameters:

    • In the Environment list, select an environment that will define the set of environment variables used in the request.

    • In the File field, provide the path to the HTTP request file. You can type the path manually and use path completion Ctrl+Space as you type, or click Open from disk and select the required folder in the dialog that opens.

    • If your request file contains multiple requests, in the Request list, choose the index of the request to execute.

When you execute an HTTP request from the editor, PyCharm automatically creates a temporary run/debug configuration with the request parameters. A temporary run/debug configuration works the same way as a permanent run/debug configuration. You can change its settings using the Run/Debug Configuration dialog and optionally save it as permanent.

Save a temporary HTTP Request run/debug configuration

  • In the Run/Debug Configuration selector, choose Save <configuration name>.

  • In the Run/Debug Configuration dialog, select the configuration and click the Save button.

Execute a request using a run/debug configuration

  • In the Run/Debug Configuration selector, select the desired run configuration. Then click Run button on the main toolbar or press Shift+F10.

  • Press Alt+Shift+F10, select the desired run configuration from the list, and press Enter.

    Run configuration popup

View responses from web services

When you execute an HTTP request, PyCharm automatically saves the response into a separate file under the .idea/httpRequests/ directory. You can view the 50 most recently stored responses and navigate to the corresponding files using the requests history. If the request was executed from a scratch file, the link to its response output is also added below the original request:

HTTP Response

The cookies received through a response are automatically saved into the dedicated http-client.cookies file under the .idea/httpRequests/ directory. The number of cookies that can be saved is limited to 300. The name and value of a cookie are automatically included in each subsequent request to the URL that matches the domain and path specified for the cookie, provided that the expiry date has not been reached.

the http-cookies file

note

If necessary, you can prevent saving the received cookie to the cookies jar by adding a comment line with the @no-cookie-jar tag before the request.

View a received response

  1. Switch to the Run tool window, which opens automatically as soon as a response is received.

  2. By default, the server response is shown in the format specified in the request header via the content-type field. To have the response converted into another format, click View as HTML The View as HTML button, View as XML The View as XML button, or View as JSON The View as JSON button.

  3. The results of the tests executed as part of a response handler script, if any, are displayed on the Tests tab of the Run tool window.

    The Tests tab of the Run tool window

Open a response file in the editor

  • Position the caret at the link to the response you want to open, and choose View | Jump to Source from the main menu, or press Ctrl+B or F4.

  • Ctrl+Click the response line:

    Open the response tooltip

Compare responses in a scratch file

When a request is executed from a scratch file, the link to the response output file is added below the original request.

  • Do any of the following:

    • Position the caret at the link to the response file. Press Alt+Enter and select the Compare with <response name> intention action.

    • Click Compare responses in the gutter and select Compare with <response name> from the list:

      compare_responses_menu

Compare responses in the requests history

When a request is executed from a physical file, the link to the response output is added to the requests history.

  1. Position the caret at the link to the response file. Choose View | Jump to Source from the main menu, or press Ctrl+B or F4 to open this file in a new editor tab.

  2. Choose View | Compare With from the main menu, or press Ctrl+D. PyCharm will prompt you to open a response file from the httpRequests folder.

  3. Select the response file you would like to compare the current file with and click Open.

The two response files will be opened in the Differences viewer allowing you to compare their contents:

compare_responses_diff

View requests history

PyCharm automatically saves the 50 recently executed requests into the http-requests-log.http file, which is stored on the project level under the .idea/httpRequests/ directory. With requests history, you can quickly navigate to a particular response as well as issue any request again. If a request is issued again from the requests history, its execution information and the link to the response output are added to the top of the requests history file.

Open requests history

  • Click the Open Log shortcut link on top of the request's editor panel.

  • Select Tools | HTTP Client | Show HTTP Requests History from the main menu.

note

To prevent saving a request to the requests history, add a comment line with the @no-log tag before the request. This can be helpful in case a request contains some sensitive data, and you don't want to log it.

Requests history

Configuring proxy settings