Making HTTP POST request

Question

I'm trying to make a POST request to retrieve information about a book. Here is the code that returns HTTP code: 302, Moved

import httplib, urllib
params = urllib.urlencode({
    'isbn' : '9780131185838',
    'catalogId' : '10001',
    'schoolStoreId' : '15828',
    'search' : 'Search'
    })
headers = {"Content-type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
           "Accept": "text/plain"}
conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("bkstr.com:80")
conn.request("POST", "/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BuybackSearch",
             params, headers)
response = conn.getresponse()
print response.status, response.reason
data = response.read()
conn.close()

When I try from a browser, from this page: http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BuybackMaterialsView?langId=-1&catalogId=10001&storeId=10051&schoolStoreId=15828 , it works. What am I missing in my code?

EDIT: Here's what I get when I call print response.msg

302 Moved Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:54:29 GMT
Vary: Host,Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Location: http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BuybackSearch
X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Seems that the location points to the same url I'm trying to access in the first place?

EDIT2:

I've tried using urllib2 as suggested here. Here is the code:

import urllib, urllib2

url = 'http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BuybackSearch'
values = {'isbn' : '9780131185838',
          'catalogId' : '10001',
          'schoolStoreId' : '15828',
          'search' : 'Search' }


data = urllib.urlencode(values)
req = urllib2.Request(url, data)
response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
print response.geturl()
print response.info()
the_page = response.read()
print the_page

And here is the output:

http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BuybackSearch
Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:58:35 GMT
Pragma: No-cache
Cache-Control: no-cache
Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=0001REjqgX2axkzlR6SvIJlgJkt:1311s25dm; Path=/
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7
Content-Length: 0
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en-US
Set-Cookie: TSde3575=225ec58bcb0fdddfad7332c2816f1f152224db2f71e1b0474c866f3b; Path=/

Answer 1

Their server seems to want you to acquire the proper cookie. This works:

import urllib, urllib2, cookielib

cookie_jar = cookielib.CookieJar()
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookie_jar))
urllib2.install_opener(opener)

# acquire cookie
url_1 = 'http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BuybackMaterialsView?langId=-1&catalogId=10001&storeId=10051&schoolStoreId=15828'
req = urllib2.Request(url_1)
rsp = urllib2.urlopen(req)

# do POST
url_2 = 'http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BuybackSearch'
values = dict(isbn='9780131185838', schoolStoreId='15828', catalogId='10001')
data = urllib.urlencode(values)
req = urllib2.Request(url_2, data)
rsp = urllib2.urlopen(req)
content = rsp.read()

# print result
import re
pat = re.compile('Title:.*')
print pat.search(content).group()

# OUTPUT: Title:&nbsp;&nbsp;Statics & Strength of Materials for Arch (w/CD)<br />

Answer 2

You might want to use the urllib2 module which should handle redirects better. Here's an example of POSTING with urllib2.

Answer 3

1. Perhaps that's what the browser gets, and you'll just have to follow the 302 redirect.

2. If all else fails, you can monitor the dialogue between Firefox and the Web Server using FireBug or tcpdump or wireshark, and see which HTTP headers are different. Possibly it's just the User Agent: header.