How to use urllib.parse.urlencode() function to encode HTTP POST data? My form data has special characters.

If your form data has spaces, equal signs, and other special characters, you need to call urllib.parse.urlencode() to encode it before passing it to the urlopen() function.

The urlencode() function takes a list name-value pairs in a JSON format, and returns a urlencoded string of name=value&.... You have to use bytes() function to convert urlencoded string to a binary before calling urlopen() function.

data = urllib.request.urlopen({'name':'value',...})
data = bytes(data,'utf8')

Here is a Python example on how to send a POST request with body data that has special characters:

>>> import urllib
>>> url = 'http://httpbin.org/post'
>>> form = {'user':'fyicenter', 'msg':'hello world!'}
>>> data = urllib.parse.urlencode(form)
>>> data = bytes(data,'utf8')
>>> r = urllib.request.urlopen(url,data)
>>> b = r.read()
>>> print(b)
b'{\n  "args": {}, \n  "data": "", \n  "files": {}, \n  
 "form": {\n    "msg": "hello world!", \n    "user": "fyicenter"\n  }, \n  
 "headers": {\n    "Accept-Encoding": "identity", ...}, \n  
 "json": null, \n  
 "url": "http://httpbin.org/post"\n}\n'

⇒ Using urllib.request.Request Object

⇐ HTTP POST with urllib.request

⇑ 'urllib' Module - Internet Communication

⇑⇑ Python Tutorials