Can Requests handle international domain names and URLs with Unicode characters?

Yes, the requests library in Python can handle international domain names (IDNs) and URLs with Unicode characters. However, it requires that you convert the Unicode URL to an ASCII-compatible encoding (ACE) representation known as Punycode before sending the HTTP request. This is necessary because the underlying libraries and the DNS infrastructure expect domain names to be in ASCII.

Here's how you can handle international domain names and URLs with Unicode characters using requests:

1. Use the idna Python module to encode the international domain name into Punycode.
2. Construct the URL with the encoded domain and the original path/query string.
3. Make the request using the requests library with the encoded URL.

Here is an example in Python:

import requests
from urllib.parse import urlparse, quote

# The URL with Unicode characters
url = 'http://例え.テスト/some/path?query=テスト'

# Parse the original URL
parsed_url = urlparse(url)

# Encode the domain name using idna encoding
encoded_domain = parsed_url.netloc.encode('idna').decode('ascii')

# Reconstruct the URL with the encoded domain and the original path/query
# Note: You need to use `quote` to percent-encode the path and query if they contain Unicode characters
encoded_path = quote(parsed_url.path)
encoded_query = quote(parsed_url.query, safe='=&')
encoded_url = f'{parsed_url.scheme}://{encoded_domain}{encoded_path}?{encoded_query}'

# Make the request
response = requests.get(encoded_url)

# Output the response
print(response.status_code)
print(response.content)

Remember that you need to install the requests library if you haven't already:

pip install requests

For JavaScript, when making requests from the browser or using Node.js, you typically don't need to manually encode the international domain names, as the browser or the HTTP library (like fetch or axios) often handles this for you. However, if you do need to encode the URL manually, you can use the punycode library (built into Node.js) or a library like url to handle the encoding.

Here's an example in JavaScript (Node.js):

const axios = require('axios');
const url = require('url');

// The URL with Unicode characters
let originalUrl = 'http://例え.テスト/some/path?query=テスト';

// Parse the original URL
let parsedUrl = new url.URL(originalUrl);

// Encode the domain name using punycode (the domainToASCII function)
let encodedDomain = parsedUrl.hostname;

// Reconstruct the URL with the encoded domain
let encodedUrl = `${parsedUrl.protocol}//${encodedDomain}${parsedUrl.pathname}${parsedUrl.search}`;

// Make the request using axios
axios.get(encodedUrl)
  .then(response => {
    console.log(response.status_code);
    console.log(response.data);
  })
  .catch(error => {
    console.log(error);
  });

For using punycode in Node.js to encode the hostname, you can use punycode.toASCII() which is available as part of the Node.js punycode module (though it is deprecated for newer versions of Node.js and might be removed in future releases). If you're working in an environment where the punycode module is not available or deprecated, you might need to add a third-party library like punycode.js:

npm install punycode

In the browser, simply passing the Unicode URL to fetch or axios should work without manual encoding. The browser automatically converts the Unicode domain to Punycode when making the request.