Convert dictionary to HTTP POST

[Steve Holden]

Laszlo Zsolt Nagy wrote:
>   Hello,
> 
> How can I convert a dictionary into a HTTP POST string?
> I have an example below, but this is not working correctly for special 
> characters. (" ' and others). In other words, if I use "Bessy's cat" 
> instead of "Bessy" then the http server will parse that to "Bessy's cat"
> Probably the problem is that I should not use urllib.quote but something 
> else.
> Can you please advise?
> 
>    Laszlo
> 
> form_values = {'name':'Bessy','age':'10','gender':'female'}
> for key,value in form_values.iteritems():
>     values.append('%s=%s' % (urllib.quote(key),urllib.quote(value)) )    
>    
> values.append('x=33')
> values.append('y=14')
> post_data = ('&'.join(values)).replace('/','%2F')
> txheaders = {  
>             
> 'Accept':'text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5',
>             'Accept-Language':'en,hu;q=0.8,en-us;q=0.5,hu-hu;q=0.3',
>             'Accept-Charset': 'ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7',
> }
> req = urllib2.Request(url, post_data, txheaders)
> u = urllib2.build_opener()
> req.add_data(post_data)
> page2 = self.download(action,post_data,{
>   'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
> })
> openerdirector = u.open(req)
> data = openerdirector.read()       
> 
See urllib.urlencode(). No idea why they don't include it in urllib2 as 
well, but there you go.

 >>> from urllib import urlencode
 >>> urlencode({'a':'& "Simple string"', 'b': '<>!@#$%^&*()_+='})
'a=%26+%22Simple+string%22&b=%3C%3E%21%40%23%24%25%5E%26%2A%28%29_%2B%3D'
 >>>

regards
  Steve
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