requests.exceptions.JSONDecodeError: Extra data: line 1 column 5 (char 4)

December 18, 2022

newb to python and requests here. I’m working with an API trying to get a JSON response but am only able to get the text version of it. My line of resp_random_1_100_int.json() returns the error:

*** requests.exceptions.JSONDecodeError: Extra data: line 1 column 4 (char 3) resp_random_1_100_int.json()

but when I run my Insomnia(similar to Postman), I’m able to get a JSON response

here is my code:

resp_random_1_100_int = requests.get(
            f"http://numbersapi.com/random",
   params={
                "min": "0",
                "max": "100"
            }
        )

resp_random_1_100_int.json() # <-- gives error

Here is my response from insomnia:

{
    "text": "1 is the number of Gods in monotheism.",
    "number": 1,
    "found": true,
    "type": "trivia"
}

Here is what it looks like in insomnia:

Also, if I only run resp_random_1_100_int.text, the response comes back with a random fact and it works but I’m not able to access the other object attributes with resp_random_1_100_int.number or resp_random_1_100_int.type

i’ve tried setting the headers with headers = {'Content-type': 'application/json'} but still no luck

Any and all help/direction is appreciated.

>Solution :

The only difference from the following code and what you posted is that I specified the content type using the headers keyword argument:

import requests
resp_random_1_100_int = requests.get(
        f"http://numbersapi.com/random",
        headers={'Content-type': 'application/json'},
        params={"min": "0", "max": "100"})

 resp_random_1_100_int.json()

Returned:

{'text': '79 is the record for cumulative weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts, held by Elvis Presley.',
 'number': 79,
 'found': True,
 'type': 'trivia'}

Here are the versions of Python and Requests I used: