Access Github API using Personal Access Token with Python urllib2

Question

I am accessing the Github API v3, it was working fine until I hit the rate limit, so I created a Personal Access Token from the Github settings page. I am trying to use the token with urllib2 and the following code:

from urllib2 import urlopen, Request

url = "https://api.github.com/users/vhf/repos"
token = "my_personal_access_token"
headers = {'Authorization:': 'token %s' % token}
#headers = {}

request = Request(url, headers=headers)
response = urlopen(request)
print(response.read())

This code works ok if I uncomment the commented line (until I hit the rate limit of 60 requests per hour). But when I run the code as is I get urllib2.HTTPError: HTTP Error 401: Unauthorized

What am I doing wrong?

Almost works! After 'Authorization' you need a colon outside of the quotations see: stackoverflow.com/questions/5512993/… — bklynjones
– bklynjones, Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 20:17
@bklynjones There is a colon there, so headers is a dict and your link isn't relevant. — Holy Mackerel
– Holy Mackerel, Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 23:44

Holy Mackerel · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-26 17:19:08Z

34

I don't know why this question was marked down. Anyway, I found an answer:

from urllib2 import urlopen, Request
url = "https://api.github.com/users/vhf/repos"
token = "my_personal_access_token"

request = Request(url)
request.add_header('Authorization', 'token %s' % token)
response = urlopen(request)
print(response.read())

answered May 26, 2014 at 17:19

Holy Mackerel

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1 Comment

Christopher Bennage Over a year ago

I was trying to do the same thing from Node. This was the tip I needed. Thanks!

Abe Miessler · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-05 04:37:01Z

I realize this question is a few years old, but if anyone wants to auth with a personal access token while also using the requests.get and requests.post methods you also have the option of using the method below:

request.get(url, data=data, auth=('user','{personal access token}'))

This is just basic authentication as documented in the requests library, which apparently you can pass personal access tokens to according to the github api docs.

From the docs:

Via OAuth Tokens Alternatively, you can use personal access tokens or OAuth tokens instead of your password.

curl -u username:token https://api.github.com/user

This approach is useful if your tools only support Basic Authentication but you want to take advantage of OAuth access token security features.

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