404 error when requesting json in Reddit API

Question

I'm trying to log into Reddit and get my own account data.

This my Python code:

from pprint import pprint
import requests
import json
username = 'dirk_b'
password = 'willnottell'
user_pass_dict = {'user': username,
      'passwd': password,
      'api_type': 'json',
      'rem': True, }
headers = {'dirkie': '/u/dirk_b API python test', }
client = requests.session()
client.headers = headers
r = client.post(r'http://www.reddit.com/api/login', data=user_pass_dict)
j = json.loads(r.content.decode());
client.modhash = j['json']['data']['modhash']
s = client.post(r'http://www.reddit.com/api/me.json', data=user_pass_dict)
pprint(s.content)

The response I get is: b'{"error": 404}'

If I do the same request without the .json part. I get a bunch of HTML code with the being 'reddit.com: page not found'. So I assume I'm doing something wrong with the URL. But the URL as I use it is how it is specified in the Reddit API.

The reason I'm not using PRAW is because I eventually want to be able to do this in c++, but I wanted to make sure it works in Python first.

Why `r.content.decode()`? The `json` library handles the decoding *for* you. `json.loads(r.content)` is just fine; alternatively, use `stream=True` to `client.post()` and use `json.load(r.raw)` to have the library read from the http socket directly (may not work if the data is compressed). — Martijn Pieters, Jun 22 '13 at 18:57
Also, what is `client.modhash`? That won't pass to the server. — Martijn Pieters, Jun 22 '13 at 18:59
It does not work without .decode in 3.3 - decode() decodes it to UTF-8. — DirkBroenink, Jun 22 '13 at 19:06

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 22 '13 at 19:09

The /api/me.json route only accepts GET requests:

s = client.get('http://www.reddit.com/api/me.json')

There is no POST route for that endpoint, so you'll get a 404 for that.

Also, if you need to pass modhash to the server, do so in the data passed in the POST request; setting client.modhash does not then pass that parameter to the server. You retrieve the modhash from your me.json GET response:

r = client.get('http://www.reddit.com/api/me.json')
modhash = r.json()['modhash']

Note how the response from requests has a .json() method, there is no need to use the json module yourself.

You then use the modhash in POST request data:

client.post('http://www.reddit.com/api/updateapp', {'modhash': modhash, 'about_url': '...', ...})

404 error when requesting json in Reddit API

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