googleapis · pawciobiel · Aug 14, 2026 · gemini-code-assist · Aug 14, 2026
@@ -6,6 +6,16 @@ This document covers techniques you can use to improve the performance of your a
 
 This client library requests gzip compression for all API responses and unzips the data for you. Although this requires additional CPU time to uncompress the results, the tradeoff with network costs usually makes it worthwhile.
 
+## About prettyPrint
+
+Google APIs indent JSON responses by default. This client library deserializes responses before returning them to you, so that formatting is discarded during parsing; it therefore requests compact responses by sending `prettyPrint=false` with every method that returns JSON. This reduces both the bytes transferred and the work of parsing them, which is most noticeable on large responses.
+
+You do not need to pass `prettyPrint=False` yourself. To get the indented form back — for instance when inspecting raw response bodies with `googleapiclient.model.dump_request_response` enabled — pass `prettyPrint=True` to the method, and your value is used instead:
+
+```python
+response = service.stamps.list(cents=5, prettyPrint=True).execute()
+```
+
 ## Partial response (fields parameter)
 
 By default, the server sends back the full representation of a resource after processing requests. For better performance, you can ask the server to send only the fields you really need and get a _partial response_ instead.

@@ -106,12 +106,15 @@ class BaseModel(Model):
       no_content_response: The value to return when deserializing a 204 "No
           Content" response.
       alt_param: The value to supply as the "alt" query parameter for requests.
+      pretty_print_param: The value to supply as the "prettyPrint" query parameter
+          for requests, or None to omit it and accept the server default of "true".
     """
 
     accept = None
     content_type = None
     no_content_response = None
     alt_param = None
+    pretty_print_param = None
 
     def _log_request(self, headers, path_params, query, body):
         """Logs debugging information about the request if requested."""
@@ -192,6 +195,11 @@ def _build_query(self, params):
         """
         if self.alt_param is not None:
             params.update({"alt": self.alt_param})
-        if self.alt_param is not None:
-            params.update({"alt": self.alt_param})
+        params = dict(params)
+        if self.alt_param is not None:
+            params.update({"alt": self.alt_param})
-        if self.alt_param is not None:
-            params.update({"alt": self.alt_param})
+        params = dict(params)
+        if self.alt_param is not None:
+            params.update({"alt": self.alt_param})
+        if self.pretty_print_param is not None:
+            # Responses are deserialized before the caller sees them, so the server's
+            # default of pretty-printed JSON only adds whitespace to transfer and parse.
+            # setdefault keeps an explicit prettyPrint= from the caller authoritative.
+            params.setdefault("prettyPrint", self.pretty_print_param)
         astuples = []
         for key, value in params.items():
             if type(value) == type([]):
@@ -274,6 +282,7 @@ class JsonModel(BaseModel):
     accept = "application/json"
     content_type = "application/json"
     alt_param = "json"
+    pretty_print_param = "false"
 
     def __init__(self, data_wrapper=False):
         """Construct a JsonModel.
@@ -322,6 +331,7 @@ class RawModel(JsonModel):
     accept = "*/*"
     content_type = "application/json"
     alt_param = None
+    pretty_print_param = None
 
     def deserialize(self, content):
         return content
@@ -342,6 +352,7 @@ class MediaModel(JsonModel):
     accept = "*/*"
     content_type = "application/json"
     alt_param = "media"
+    pretty_print_param = None
 
     def deserialize(self, content):
         return content

@@ -1791,7 +1791,7 @@ def test_simple_media_good_upload(self):
         self.assertEqual(b"PNG", request.body[1:4])
         assertUrisEqual(
             self,
-            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=media&alt=json",
+            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=media&alt=json&prettyPrint=false",
             request.uri,
         )
 
@@ -1812,7 +1812,7 @@ def test_simple_media_unknown_mimetype(self):
         self.assertEqual(b"PNG", request.body[1:4])
         assertUrisEqual(
             self,
-            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=media&alt=json",
+            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=media&alt=json&prettyPrint=false",
             request.uri,
         )
 
@@ -1861,7 +1861,7 @@ def test_multipart_media_good_upload(self, static_discovery=False):
         )
         assertUrisEqual(
             self,
-            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=multipart&alt=json",
+            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=multipart&alt=json&prettyPrint=false",
             request.uri,
         )
 
@@ -2007,7 +2007,7 @@ def test_resumable_media_good_upload_from_execute(self):
         request = zoo.animals().insert(media_body=media_upload, body=None)
         assertUrisEqual(
             self,
-            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=resumable&alt=json",
+            "https://www.googleapis.com/upload/zoo/v1/animals?uploadType=resumable&alt=json&prettyPrint=false",
             request.uri,
         )
 

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
 
 import unittest
 
-from googleapiclient.model import BaseModel, makepatch
+from googleapiclient.model import BaseModel, JsonModel, MediaModel, RawModel, makepatch
 
 TEST_CASES = [
     # (message, original, modified, expected)
@@ -89,6 +89,23 @@ def test_build_query(self):
             key, value, expect = case
             self.assertEqual(expect, model._build_query({key: value}))
 
+    def test_build_query_omits_pretty_print_by_default(self):
+        self.assertEqual("?hello=world", BaseModel()._build_query({"hello": "world"}))
+
+
+class TestPrettyPrint(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_json_model_asks_for_compact_responses(self):
+        query = JsonModel()._build_query({"hello": "world"})
+        self.assertIn("prettyPrint=false", query)
+
+    def test_explicit_pretty_print_is_preserved(self):
+        query = JsonModel()._build_query({"prettyPrint": "true"})
+        self.assertEqual("?prettyPrint=true&alt=json", query)
+
+    def test_non_json_models_omit_pretty_print(self):
+        for model in (RawModel(), MediaModel()):
+            self.assertNotIn("prettyPrint", model._build_query({"hello": "world"}))
+
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()