python requests .status_code not returning correct value

Question

Looking at the documentation here: http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/user/quickstart/

This should print 200 and it does.

import requests
r = requests.get('http://souke.xdf.cn/Category/1-40-0-0.html?v=5&page=1&pagesize=50')
print r.status_code

This should print 404 but it prints 200

import requests
r = requests.get('http://souke.xdf.cn/CategoryXXX/1-40-0-0.html?v=5&page=1&pagesize=50')
print r.status_code

Why is that?

Is there another way to recognize a 404 error has occurred?

Answer 1

The problem isn't with requests but with the site you're accessing. It's returning 200.

You can confirm this by looking at the headers using something like the Chrome developer tools:

Request URL:http://souke.xdf.cn/CategoryXXX/1-40-0-0.html?v=5&page=1&pagesize=50
Request Method:GET
Status Code:200 OK

Answer 2

The page you are looking for is found on the server , therefore the server responded with a 200 OK. Nevertheless you can use Requests's raise_for_status() , to raise an exception whenever a server error is found, like 404 , 401 and so on.

import requests

>>>>r = requests.get('http://something.com/404/')
>>>>print r.status_code
404
>>>>r.raise_for_status()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "requests/models.py", line 832, in raise_for_status
raise http_error
requests.exceptions.HTTPError: 404 Client Error

Answer 3

.raise_for_status()

this will raise error if not 200

this is better than using

.status_code