Python - lesson 6 | HackIndia Skills

Python - lesson 6 | HackIndia Skills | HackIndia

Example

Call a mock API

This example reads a city name from code for now, sends it as a query parameter, checks the response, and writes selected fields to output.json.

It uses httpbin.org, a public HTTP testing service. Later you can replace the URL with your AI API, weather API, startup data API, or college project backend.

import json
import requests

url = "https://httpbin.org/get"
params = {"city": "Bengaluru", "task": "demo"}
headers = {"User-Agent": "hackindia-python-tool/1.0"}

try:
    response = requests.get(url, params=params, headers=headers, timeout=10)
    response.raise_for_status()
except requests.RequestException as error:
    print(f"API call failed: {error}")
    raise SystemExit(1)

data = response.json()

result = {
    "called_url": data["url"],
    "sent_params": data["args"],
    "status": "ok"
}

with open("output.json", "w", encoding="utf-8") as file:
    json.dump(result, file, indent=2)

print("Wrote output.json")

Tip

Keep secrets out

Do not paste API keys into your script or commit them to GitHub. Read them from environment variables.

If you use ChatGPT or Gemini to generate API code, ask it to use environment variables and timeout handling. Then check that it did not hard-code keys, skip error handling, or write unclear output.

import os

api_key = os.getenv("MY_API_KEY")
if not api_key:
    raise SystemExit("Missing MY_API_KEY")

headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"}

Common mistake

Common API mistakes

Beginners often print the full response and stop there. Your proof needs useful output: a JSON, CSV, or text file that another person can inspect.

Another common mistake is ignoring status codes. A failed API can still return text, but your script should detect the failure and exit clearly.

response.raise_for_status()

Call APIs from Python

The one idea

What you need

Install requests

Call a mock API

Keep secrets out

Common API mistakes

Do this now

Quick check