Python .patch()

The .patch() method in the requests module is used to send a PATCH request to a specified URL, allowing for partial modifications of a resource. When only a subset of data needs to be updated, this method is particularly efficient, as PATCH can modify specific fields without requiring the replacement of the entire resource, unlike PUT from the .put() method, which overwrites the entire object.

Syntax

requests.patch(url, data=None, json=None, **kwargs)

Parameters:

• url: URL to which the request is sent.
• data: (optional) Dictionary, list of tuples, bytes, or file-like object that contains the data to send.
• json: (optional) A JSON serializable Python object that will be sent as a JSON formatted string.
• kwargs: Additional keyword arguments that can be passed to the method (e.g. headers, auth, etc.).

Return value:

The method returns a Response object, which contains various information about the HTTP response returned by the server after processing the PATCH request.

Example 1

In this example, the .patch() method is used to send a PATCH request to a REST API of a user management system in order to update a user’s profile. The user’s current data is modeled as a JSON object:

{
  "id": 53,
  "name": "Lorem Ipsum",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

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We just want to update the user’s email address without changing the other fields:

import requests

# URL of the API endpoint for the user
url = 'https://api.example.com/users/53'

# Updated user field
updated_data = {
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

# Sending the PATCH request
response = requests.patch(url, json=updated_data)

# Checking the response
if response.status_code == 200:
  updated_user = response.json()
  print("User updated successfully:", updated_user)
else:
  print("Failed to update user:", response.status_code, response.text)

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A conditional if-else statement is used in this case to output a message indicating a successful data update, when the server status code is 200, or an unsuccessful update otherwise.

For updating multiple fields, it is sufficient to store all the attributes in the JSON object, as seen in the updated_multi variable, and pass it to the patch() method:

updated_multi = {
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "telephone": "+00123456789"
}

response = requests.patch(url, json=updated_multi)

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Example 2

In the following example, custom headers (such as an Authorization token) are included in the PATCH request:

import requests

url = "https://api.example.com/resource/17"

data = {
  "description": "This is an updated resource description."
}

headers = {
  "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN",
  "Content-Type": "application/json"
}

response = requests.patch(url, json=data, headers=headers)

if response.status_code == 200:
  print("Resource updated successfully:", response.json())
else:
  print("Failed to update resource, status code:", response.status_code)

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Codebyte Example

In this example, the .patch() method sends a PATCH request to a public test API to update a resource’s title:

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