Using Python to send HTTP request and parse JSON

Question

I am very new to Python and am trying to get a response back from the URL for every user in the user.csv file, return the JSON message, then parse it to a CSV. I'm not sure what to put in the return section or how to split out the message. This is a sample of the message that is returned to me when I get the HTTP request:

{"msg": {"mes": "four", "high": 1230, "low": 0}}"

Here is what I have so far but I am getting an error:

TypeError: expected string or buffer

import requests
import json
import csv

def getRows(data):
    return []

url = 'http://test_url'

with open('user.csv', 'rU') as data_file:
    data = csv.DictReader(data_file)
    for row in data:
        current_user = row['mdn']
        r = requests.get(url)
        data = json.loads(data)
        fname = "mydata.csv"
with open(fname,'wb') as outf:
    outcsv = csv.writer(outf)
    outcsv.writerows(getRows(data))

Answer 1

With the information you provide, you can do something like this:

import requests
import csv

url = 'http://test_url'
with open('user.csv', 'rU') as data_file:
     data = csv.DictReader(data_file)
     for row in data:
         current_user = row['mdn']
         r = requests.get(url) # probably you also need to send current_user somehow. "r = requests.get(url+'?user='+current_user)" maybe?
         string_json = r.text.encode('utf-8')
         json = eval(string_json)   # only use this command if you are sure that string_json only contains a valid json and no malicious code instead
         with open('outputfile.csv','a') as outfile:
             outfile.write(current_user+';'+json["msg"]["mes"]+';'+json["msg"]["high"]+';'+json["msg"]["low"]+'\n') 

Please provide more information about the HTTP request usage and about the format of your csv for a more precise answer