Handling HTTP requests and responses

Every web request carries data: query parameters in the URL, headers with metadata, and optionally a body with JSON or form data. Your backend reads these inputs, processes them, and returns a response with a status code indicating success or failure.

from flask import Flask, request, jsonify

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route("/api/search")
def search():
    query = request.args.get("q", "")
    limit = request.args.get("limit", 10, type=int)

    results = [s for s in ["Vega", "Sirius", "Venus"]
               if query.lower() in s.lower()]

    return jsonify({
        "query": query,
        "results": results[:limit],
        "count": len(results),
    }), 200

How it reads

• request.args.get('q') reads a query parameter from the URL
• 200 is the HTTP status code meaning the request succeeded
• The response body is a JSON object with query, results, and count

Cloud tip: Common status codes: 200 OK, 201 Created, 400 Bad Request, 404 Not Found, 500 Internal Server Error.