How HTTP redirects work
#When you request a URL, the server might respond with a redirect instead of data — a signal that says 'the resource lives somewhere else now, go there instead.'
Two redirect status codes matter most:
- 301 Moved Permanently — the URL has changed forever. Browsers and scripts should update their bookmarks.
- 302 Found (temporary redirect) — the resource is temporarily at another URL. Keep using the original URL next time.
Both codes come with a Location header that tells the client where to go next.
The requests library follows redirects automatically by default. When you get a response back, you have already arrived at the final destination:
```python
import requests
BASE_URL = 'https://apilearn.tukas.dev'
response = requests.get(f'{BASE_URL}/api/redirect/')
print(response.status_code) # 200 — final destination
print(response.url) # https://apilearn.tukas.dev/api/products/
```
To see the redirect itself instead of the final response, pass allow_redirects=False:
```python
response = requests.get(f'{BASE_URL}/api/redirect/', allow_redirects=False)
print(response.status_code) # 302
print(response.headers['Location']) # where it redirects to
```
When requests follows a redirect chain, it stores the intermediate responses in response.history — a list of Response objects, one per hop:
```python
response = requests.get(f'{BASE_URL}/api/redirect/')
for hop in response.history:
print(hop.status_code, hop.url)
# 302 https://apilearn.tukas.dev/api/redirect/
print(response.status_code, response.url) # 200 final URL
```
response.history is empty when there were no redirects. response.url always shows the final URL you actually landed on, regardless of how many hops it took.