#7599·requests

Documentation for stream parameter is ambiguous

Author: diederikvdvCreated Aug 4, 2026Updated Sep 4, 2026

Old docs suggest to me that if False, it won't be immediately be downloaded: https://github.com/psf/requests/blob/1f6589ec3a1ee910f9a65cc3ceac60b26677bc0e/src/requests/sessions.py#L605

        :param stream: (optional) whether to immediately download the response
            content. Defaults to ``False``.

Expected Result VS Actual result

whether to immediately download the response default anwer=False, so it won't immediately download the response. According to https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/advanced/#body-content-workflow it is the other way around, so if stream==True, then it won't immediately download the response.

Proposed fix

        :param stream: (optional) Whether to use the streaming property. Defaults to ``False``.
            When set to ``False``, the response content will be immediately downloaded.

Removes the ambiguity from the docstring

Checks/ steps done

  • I didn't see existing issues for this
  • I didn't see existing PRs for this
  • I tried to run it locally with pre-commit
    • Earlier I had 1 big line, but pre-commit didn't auto format it to a shorter line, so I did that manually
  • I tried to fork and create a PR, but that was blocked, so I created this issue