How to send an array using requests.post (Python)? "Value Error: Too many values to unpack"

I'm trying to send an array(list) of requests to the WheniWork API using requests.post, and I keep getting one of two errors. When I send the list as a list, I get an unpacking error, and when I send it as a string, I get an error asking me to submit an array. I think it has something to do with how requests handles lists. Here are the examples:

url='https://api.wheniwork.com/2/batch'
headers={"W-Token": "Ilovemyboss"}
data=[{'url': '/rest/shifts', 'params': {'user_id': 0,'other_stuff':'value'}, 'method':'post',{'url': '/rest/shifts', 'params': {'user_id': 1,'other_stuff':'value'}, 'method':'post'}]
r = requests.post(url, headers=headers,data=data)
print r.text

# ValueError: too many values to unpack

Simply wrapping the value for data in quotes:

url='https://api.wheniwork.com/2/batch'
headers={"W-Token": "Ilovemyboss"}
data="[]" #removed the data here to emphasize that the only change is the quotes
r = requests.post(url, headers=headers,data=data)
print r.text

#{"error":"Please include an array of requests to make.","code":5000}

You want to pass in JSON encoded data. See the API documentation:

> Remember — All post bodies must be JSON encoded data (no form data).

The requests library makes this trivially easy:

headers = {"W-Token": "Ilovemyboss"}
data = [
    {
        'url': '/rest/shifts',
        'params': {'user_id': 0, 'other_stuff': 'value'},
        'method': 'post',
    },
    {
        'url': '/rest/shifts',
        'params': {'user_id': 1,'other_stuff': 'value'},
        'method':'post',
    },
]
requests.post(url, json=data, headers=headers)

By using the json keyword argument the data is encoded to JSON for you, and the Content-Type header is set to application/json.

Well, It turns out that all I needed to do was add these headers:

headers = {'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Accept':'application/json'}

and then call requests

requests.post(url,data=json.dumps(payload), headers=headers)

and now i'm good!

Always remember when sending an array(list) or dictionary in the HTTP POST request, do use json argument in the post function and set its value to your array(list)/dictionary.

In your case it will be like:

> r = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=data)

Note: POST requests implicitly convert parameter's content type for body to application/json.

For a quick intro read API-Integration-In-Python

I have a similar case but totally different solution, I've copied a snippet of code which looks like that:

resp_status, resp_data = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=payload, verify=False) 

and this resulted in error:

ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 2)

just assigning to one variable resolve the issue:

response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=payload, verify=False)