a flutter library to make HTTP requests (inspired by python requests module). It comes with JSON support and a lightweight implementation to store cookies like a browser.

Cookies, huh?

Server side cookies (via response header SET-COOKIE) are stored using the assistance of shared_preferences. Stored cookies will be send seamlessly on the next http requests you make to the same domain (simple implementation, similar to a web browser)

About this fork

I created this fork for a project of mine as I came across two major problems of the original code:

1. Cookies sent together with a redirect HTTP response (e.g. 303) were ignored
2. Cookies using flags instead of keyword arguments ('HttpOnly' instead of 'HttpOnly=true' were not correctly parsed)

Both problems are fixed in this fork.

This fork provides a few more options ('followRedirect', 'maxRedirects' and 'client' for a custom HttpClient) and has a slightly changed API usage (see below) to clean up library code.

Install

Add this to your package's pubspec.yaml file:

dependencies:
  requests: ^3.0.3

Usage

Start by importing the library

import 'package:requests/requests.dart';

Let's make a simple HTTP request

var r = await Requests.get("https://google.com");
r.raiseForStatus();
String body = r.content();

the Response object

just like in python's request module, the Response object has this functionallity

• r.throwForStatus() - will throw an exception if the response statusCode is not a great success.
• r.raiseForStatus() - same as throwForStatus
• r.statusCode - the response status code
• r.url - the url in the request
• r.success - a boolean. true indicates that the request was a great success
• r.hasError - a boolean. true indicates that the request was not a great success
• r.bytes() - return the body in the respone as a list of bytes
• r.content() - return the body in the respone as a string
• r.json() - recodes the body in the respone and returns the result (dynamic type)

Optional Arguments

• json - a dynamic object that will be json encoded and then be set as the request's body
• body - a raw string to be used as the request's body
• bodyEncoding - default RequestBodyEncoding.FormURLEncoded. will set the content-type header
• headers - Map<String, String> of custom client headers to add in the request
• options - an instance of RequestOptions (shorthand: O)

💡 Only one optional argument can be used in a single request body or json

Class Methods

• .getHostname(url) - returns the hostname of the given url
• .clearStoredCookies(hostname) - clears the stored cookies for the hostname
• .setStoredCookies(hostname, Map<String, String>) - set the stored cookies for the hostname
• .getStoredCookies(hostname) - returns a Map<String, String> of the stored cookies for the hostname

Examples

HTTP post, body encoded as application/x-www-form-urlencoded, parse response as json

var r = await Requests.post(
  "https://reqres.in/api/users",
  body: {
    "userId": 10,
    "id": 91,
    "title": "aut amet sed",
  },
  bodyEncoding: RequestBodyEncoding.FormURLEncoded);

r.raiseForStatus();
dynamic json = r.json();
print(json['id']);

---

HTTP GET with some options:

var r = await Requests.get(
  "https://example.com",
  options: O(
    followRedirect: false,  // do not follow redirect responses (301, 302, 303, ...)
    verifySSL: false,       // ignore invalid SSL certificates (renamed from the original `verify`)
    persistCookies: false,  // do not keep cookies
    timeoutSeconds: 20      // timeout, obviously
  ));
  r.raiseForStatus();

---

HTTP delete

var r = await Requests.delete("https://reqres.in/api/users/10");
r.raiseForStatus();

---

Ignore SSL self-signed certificate

var r = await Requests.get('https://expired.badssl.com/', verify: false);
r.raiseForStatus();

---

Play with stored cookies

String url = "https://reqres.in/api/users/10";
String hostname = Requests.getHostname(url);
await Requests.clearStoredCookies(hostname);
await Requests.setStoredCookies(hostname, {'session': 'bla'});
var cookies = await Requests.getStoredCookies(hostname);
expect(cookies.keys.length, 1);
await Requests.clearStoredCookies(hostname);
cookies = await Requests.getStoredCookies(hostname);
expect(cookies.keys.length, 0);

Business vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com