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Asked: 2026-06-13T08:06:21+00:00

How can I POST parameters with a file object to a URL using httplib

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How can I POST parameters with a file object to a URL using httplib in python web services.

Am using the following scripts:

import httplib
import urllib
params = urllib.urlencode({"@str1":"string1", "@str2":"string2", "@file":"/local/path/to/file/in/client/machine", "@action":"action.php" })
headers = {"Content-type":"application/pdf , text/*" }
conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("192.168.2.17")
conn.request("POST", "/SomeName/action.php", params, headers)
response = conn.getresponse()
print response.status, response.reason
data = response.read()
data
conn.close()

And I have the following output:

200
OK
<html>.....some html code </html>

I wrote some php code for save those string and the file in DB
My problem is that, Am only getting the file path as a sting but not my file.
May be I have to send the file object like,

file_obj = open("filename.txt","r")
conn.request("POST", "/SomeName/action.php", file_obj, headers)

But I want to send both strings and file. Any suggestions to solve this?

EDIT
I change my code as follows:
When i send a pdf file, by directly using httplib, to my server the file saves as BIN file.

def document_management_service(self,str_loc_file_path,*args):
    locfile = open(str_loc_file_path,'rb').read()
    host = "some.hostname.com"
    selector = "/api/?task=create"
    fields = [('docName','INVOICE'),('docNumber','DOC/3'),('cusName','name'),('cusNumber','C124'),('category','INVOICE'),('data','TIJO MRS,SOME/DATA/CONTENT,Blahblah,2584.00,blahblah'),('action','create')]
    files = [('strfile','File.pdf',locfile)]
    response = self.post_multipart(host, selector, fields, files)
    print response
    pass

def post_multipart(self,host, selector, fields, files):
    content_type, body = self.encode_multipart_formdata(fields, files)
    h = httplib.HTTP(host)
    h.set_debuglevel(1)
    h.putrequest('POST', selector)
    h.putheader('content-type', content_type)
    h.putheader('content-length', str(len(body)))
    h.putheader('Host', host)
    h.endheaders()
    h.send(body)
    errcode, errmsg, headers= h.getreply()
    return h.file.read()

def encode_multipart_formdata(self, fields, files):
    LIMIT = '----------lImIt_of_THE_fIle_eW_$'
    CRLF = '\r\n'
    L = []
    for (key, value) in fields:
        L.append('--' + LIMIT)
        L.append('Content-Disposition: form-data; name="%s"' % key)
        L.append('')
        L.append(value)
    for (key, filename, value) in files:
        L.append('--' + LIMIT)
        L.append('Content-Disposition: form-data; name="%s"; filename="%s"' % (key, filename))
        L.append('Content-Type: %s' % self.get_content_type(filename))
        L.append('')
        L.append(value)
    L.append('--' + LIMIT + '--')
    L.append('')
    body = CRLF.join(L)
    content_type = 'multipart/form-data; boundary=%s' % LIMIT
    return content_type, body

def get_content_type(self, filename):
    return mimetypes.guess_type(filename)[0] or 'application/octet-stream'

I have debug the request which shows as:

[('content-length', '4191'), ('accept-ranges', 'bytes'), ('server', 'Apache/2.2.12 (Ubuntu)'), ('last-modified', 'Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:46:36 GMT'), ('etag', 'W/"567dd-105f-4ccb2a7a9a500"'), ('date', 'Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:46:36 GMT'), ('content-type', 'application/pdf')]
multipart/form-data; boundary=----------lImIt_of_THE_fIle_eW_$

And I didn’t try requests,Coz I would like to solve this with httplib(without any external lib)

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    To post parameters and a file in a body you could use multipart/form-data content type:

    #!/usr/bin/env python
import requests # $ pip install requests

file = 'file content as a file object or string'
r = requests.post('http://example.com/SomeName/action.php',
                  files={'file': ('filename.txt', file)},
                  data={'str1': 'string1', 'str2': 'string2'})
print(r.text) # response

    requests.post sends to the server something like-this:

    POST /SomeName/action.php HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Content-Length: 449
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=f27f8ef67cac403aaaf433f83742bd64
Accept-Encoding: identity, deflate, compress, gzip
Accept: */*

--f27f8ef67cac403aaaf433f83742bd64
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="str2"
Content-Type: text/plain

string2
--f27f8ef67cac403aaaf433f83742bd64
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="str1"
Content-Type: text/plain

string1
--f27f8ef67cac403aaaf433f83742bd64
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="filename.txt"
Content-Type: text/plain

file content as a file object or string
--f27f8ef67cac403aaaf433f83742bd64--

    To reproduce it with httplib see POST form-data with Python example.

    A simpler solution if your parameters do not contain much data is to pass them in the url query part and leave the body to contain only the file:

    #!/usr/bin/env python
import urllib
import requests # $ pip install requests

params = {'str1': 'string1', 'str2': 'string2', 'filename': 'filename.txt'}
file = 'file content as a file object or string, etc'    
url = 'http://example.com/SomeName/action.php?' + urllib.urlencode(params)
r = requests.post(url, data=file, headers={'Content-Type': 'text/plain'})
print(r.text) # response

    It corresponds to the following HTTP request:

    POST /SomeName/action.php?str2=string2&str1=string1&filename=filename.txt HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Content-Length: 39
Content-Type: text/plain
Accept-Encoding: identity, deflate, compress, gzip
Accept: */*

file content as a file object or string

    It should be easier to translate to httplib if you need it.

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