How to "log in" to a website using Python's Requests module?

Question

I am trying to post a request to log in to a website using the Requests module in Python but its not really working. I'm new to this...so I can't figure out if I should make my Username and Password cookies or some type of HTTP authorization thing I found (??).

from pyquery import PyQuery
import requests

url = 'http://www.locationary.com/home/index2.jsp'

So now, I think I'm supposed to use "post" and cookies....

ck = {'inUserName': 'USERNAME/EMAIL', 'inUserPass': 'PASSWORD'}

r = requests.post(url, cookies=ck)

content = r.text

q = PyQuery(content)

title = q("title").text()

print title

I have a feeling that I'm doing the cookies thing wrong...I don't know.

If it doesn't log in correctly, the title of the home page should come out to "Locationary.com" and if it does, it should be "Home Page."

If you could maybe explain a few things about requests and cookies to me and help me out with this, I would greatly appreciate it. :D

Thanks.

...It still didn't really work yet. Okay...so this is what the home page HTML says before you log in:

</td><td><img src="http://www.locationary.com/img/LocationaryImgs/icons/txt_email.gif">    </td>
<td><input class="Data_Entry_Field_Login" type="text" name="inUserName" id="inUserName"  size="25"></td>
<td><img src="http://www.locationary.com/img/LocationaryImgs/icons/txt_password.gif"> </td>
<td><input  class="Data_Entry_Field_Login"  type="password" name="inUserPass"     id="inUserPass"></td>

So I think I'm doing it right, but the output is still "Locationary.com"

2nd EDIT:

I want to be able to stay logged in for a long time and whenever I request a page under that domain, I want the content to show up as if I were logged in.

Answer 1

I know you've found another solution, but for those like me who find this question, looking for the same thing, it can be achieved with requests as follows:

Firstly, as Marcus did, check the source of the login form to get three pieces of information - the url that the form posts to, and the name attributes of the username and password fields. In his example, they are inUserName and inUserPass.

Once you've got that, you can use a requests.Session() instance to make a post request to the login url with your login details as a payload. Making requests from a session instance is essentially the same as using requests normally, it simply adds persistence, allowing you to store and use cookies etc.

Assuming your login attempt was successful, you can simply use the session instance to make further requests to the site. The cookie that identifies you will be used to authorise the requests.

Example

import requests

# Fill in your details here to be posted to the login form.
payload = {
    'inUserName': 'username',
    'inUserPass': 'password'
}

# Use 'with' to ensure the session context is closed after use.
with requests.Session() as s:
    p = s.post('LOGIN_URL', data=payload)
    # print the html returned or something more intelligent to see if it's a successful login page.
    print p.text

    # An authorised request.
    r = s.get('A protected web page url')
    print r.text
        # etc...