Converting PHP curl_setopt() to Python Requests and to CLI curl

I am trying to convert the following PHP curl_setopt() to the equivalent within Python Requests as well as for CLI curl. For Python, if not possible in Requests, I will resort using pycurl.

curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);

Here is the working PHP curl code:

$params = array(
    'username' => $username,
    'password' => $password
);

$params_string = json_encode($params);

$process = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $params_string);

$headers = array();
$headers[] = 'Content-Type: application/json';
curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);

$data = curl_exec ($process);

curl_close ($process);

I am at a loss what I need to set within Python Requests for those two PHP curl_setopt(s).

And I have tried the following in CLI curl, but I got a Bad Request error:

AUTHENTICATE_DATA="usename=${USERNAME}&password=${PASSWORD}"

AUTHENTICATE_RESPONSE=$(curl \
  -X POST \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-urlencode "${AUTHENTICATE_DATA}" \
  -v \
  ${AUTHENTICATE_URL})

echo ${AUTHENTICATE_RESPONSE}

What do I need?

Thank you, appreciate the assistance.

Solution

curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

This option simply says that the result of curl_exec() is passed to a return variable. On the command line, the default is to output to standard output.

curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);

This is a very bad idea and is going to make you vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. There's no excuse to use it. --insecure is the equivalent command line option.

Also worth mentioning that you're passing a JSON string as parameter for CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, and there's no JSON encoding going on with the CLI code you've got.