2.5. JSON Response Content

There’s also a builtin JSON decoder, in case you’re dealing with JSON data:

>>> import requests

>>> r = requests.get('https://api.github.com/events')
>>> r.json()
[{u'repository': {u'open_issues': 0, u'url': 'https://github.com/...

In case the JSON decoding fails, r.json() raises an exception. For example, if the response gets a 204 (No Content), or if the response contains invalid JSON, attempting r.json() raises ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded.

It should be noted that the success of the call to r.json() does not indicate the success of the response. Some servers may return a JSON object in a failed response (e.g. error details with HTTP 500). Such JSON will be decoded and returned. To check that a request is successful, use r.raise_for_status() or check r.status_code is what you expect.