How do I automatically change a part of a url to query a website a set number of times in python?

I have very basic knowledge of python, so sorry if my question sounds dumb.

I need to query a website for a personal project I am doing, but I need to query it 500 times, and each time I need to change 1 specific part of the url, then take the data and upload it to gsheets.

(The () signifies what part of the url I need to change)
‘https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=BALANCE_SHEET&symbol=(symbol)&apikey=apikey’

I thought about using while and format {} to do it, but I was unsure how to change the string each time, bar writing out the names for variables by hand (defeating the whole purpose of this).

I already have a list of the symbols I need to use, but I don’t know how to input them

Example of how I get 1 piece of data

import requests
url = 'https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=BALANCE_SHEET&symbol=MMM&apikey=demo'
r = requests.get(url)
data = r.json()

Example of what I’d like to change it to

import requests
url = 'https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=BALANCE_SHEET&symbol=AOS&apikey=demo'
r = requests.get(url)
data = r.json()

#then change it to

import requests
url = 'https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=BALANCE_SHEET&symbol=ABT&apikey=demo'
r = requests.get(url)
data = r.json()

so on and so forth, 500 times.

>Solution :

You might combine .format with for loop, consider following simple example

symbols = ["abc","xyz","123"]
for s in symbols:
    url = 'https://www.example.com?symbol={}'.format(s)
    print(url)

output

https://www.example.com?symbol=abc
https://www.example.com?symbol=xyz
https://www.example.com?symbol=123

You might also elect to use any other way of formatting, e.g. f-string (requires python3.6 or newer) in which case code would be

symbols = ["abc","xyz","123"]
for s in symbols:
    url = f'https://www.example.com?symbol={s}'
    print(url)

Alternatively you might params optional argument of requests.get function as follows

import requests
symbols = ["abc","xyz","123"]
for s in symbols:
    r = requests.get('https://www.example.com', params={'symbol':s})
    print(r.url)

output

https://www.example.com/?symbol=abc
https://www.example.com/?symbol=xyz
https://www.example.com/?symbol=123