How to Ping API With Python

If you are coding a Python program that calls on an Internet site's API service you might want to ping the API's address in your program. Depending on the results of the ping you can script whether the program should proceed or not. You can ping an API using Python's "subprocess" module.

How to: Python Using the Twitter API
How to Use Python to Fetch API Data

Print this article

Instructions

- 1
  
  Open your Python script and locate where you want the program to ping an API.
- 2
  
  Type:
  
  import subprocess
  
  test = "ping 111.111.111.111"
  process = subprocess.Popen(test, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
  process.wait(XX)
  
  Replace "111.111.111.111" with the IP address to the API. Replace "XX" with an interval in seconds that your program should wait for a ping back before proceeding.
- 3
  
  Save and close your script.