Just send xml bytes directly:
#!/usr/bin/env python2
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import requests
xml = """<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<a>?</a>"""
headers = {'Content-Type': 'application/xml'} # set what your server accepts
print requests.post('http://httpbin.org/post', data=xml, headers=headers).text
{
"origin": "x.x.x.x",
"files": {},
"form": {},
"url": "http://httpbin.org/post",
"args": {},
"headers": {
"Content-Length": "48",
"Accept-Encoding": "identity, deflate, compress, gzip",
"Connection": "keep-alive",
"Accept": "*/*",
"User-Agent": "python-requests/0.13.9 CPython/2.7.3 Linux/3.2.0-30-generic",
"Host": "httpbin.org",
"Content-Type": "application/xml"
},
"json": null,
"data": "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>\n<a>\u0431</a>"
}