Doc/lib/liburllib.tex

\section{\module{urllib} ---
         Open an arbitrary object given by URL.}
\declaremodule{standard}{urllib}

\modulesynopsis{Open an arbitrary object given by URL (requires sockets).}

\index{WWW}
\index{World-Wide Web}
\index{URL}


This module provides a high-level interface for fetching data across
the World-Wide Web.  In particular, the \function{urlopen()} function
is similar to the built-in function \function{open()}, but accepts
Universal Resource Locators (URLs) instead of filenames.  Some
restrictions apply --- it can only open URLs for reading, and no seek
operations are available.

It defines the following public functions:

\begin{funcdesc}{urlopen}{url\optional{, data}}
Open a network object denoted by a URL for reading.  If the URL does
not have a scheme identifier, or if it has \file{file:} as its scheme
identifier, this opens a local file; otherwise it opens a socket to a
server somewhere on the network.  If the connection cannot be made, or
if the server returns an error code, the \exception{IOError} exception
is raised.  If all went well, a file-like object is returned.  This
supports the following methods: \method{read()}, \method{readline()},
\method{readlines()}, \method{fileno()}, \method{close()} and
\method{info()}.

Except for the \method{info()} method,
these methods have the same interface as for
file objects --- see section \ref{bltin-file-objects} in this
manual.  (It is not a built-in file object, however, so it can't be
used at those few places where a true built-in file object is
required.)

The \method{info()} method returns an instance of the class
\class{mimetools.Message} containing the headers received from the
server, if the protocol uses such headers (currently the only
supported protocol that uses this is HTTP).  See the description of
the \module{mimetools}\refstmodindex{mimetools} module.

If the \var{url} uses the \file{http:} scheme identifier, the optional
\var{data} argument may be given to specify a \code{POST} request
(normally the request type is \code{GET}).  The \var{data} argument
must in standard \file{application/x-www-form-urlencoded} format;
see the \function{urlencode()} function below.

\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{urlretrieve}{url}
Copy a network object denoted by a URL to a local file, if necessary.
If the URL points to a local file, or a valid cached copy of the
object exists, the object is not copied.  Return a tuple
\code{(\var{filename}, \var{headers})} where \var{filename} is the
local file name under which the object can be found, and \var{headers}
is either \code{None} (for a local object) or whatever the
\method{info()} method of the object returned by \function{urlopen()}
returned (for a remote object, possibly cached).  Exceptions are the
same as for \function{urlopen()}.
\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{urlcleanup}{}
Clear the cache that may have been built up by previous calls to
\function{urlretrieve()}.
\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{quote}{string\optional{, safe}}
Replace special characters in \var{string} using the \samp{\%xx} escape.
Letters, digits, and the characters \character{_,.-} are never quoted.
The optional \var{safe} parameter specifies additional characters
that should not be quoted --- its default value is \code{'/'}.

Example: \code{quote('/\~connolly/')} yields \code{'/\%7econnolly/'}.
\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{quote_plus}{string\optional{, safe}}
Like \function{quote()}, but also replaces spaces by plus signs, as
required for quoting HTML form values.  Plus signs in the original
string are escaped unless they are included in \var{safe}.
\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{unquote}{string}
Replace \samp{\%xx} escapes by their single-character equivalent.

Example: \code{unquote('/\%7Econnolly/')} yields \code{'/\~connolly/'}.
\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{unquote_plus}{string}
Like \function{unquote()}, but also replaces plus signs by spaces, as
required for unquoting HTML form values.
\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{urlencode}{dict}
Convert a dictionary to a ``url-encoded'' string, suitable to pass to
\function{urlopen()} above as the optional \var{data} argument.  This
is useful to pass a dictionary of form fields to a \code{POST}
request.  The resulting string is a series of \var{key}\code{=}\var{value}
pairs separated by \code{\&} characters, where both \var{key} and
\var{value} are quoted using \function{quote_plus()} above.
\end{funcdesc}

Restrictions:

\begin{itemize}

\item
Currently, only the following protocols are supported: HTTP, (versions
0.9 and 1.0), Gopher (but not Gopher-+), FTP, and local files.
\indexii{HTTP}{protocol}
\indexii{Gopher}{protocol}
\indexii{FTP}{protocol}

\item
The caching feature of \function{urlretrieve()} has been disabled
until I find the time to hack proper processing of Expiration time
headers.

\item
There should be a function to query whether a particular URL is in
the cache.

\item
For backward compatibility, if a URL appears to point to a local file
but the file can't be opened, the URL is re-interpreted using the FTP
protocol.  This can sometimes cause confusing error messages.

\item
The \function{urlopen()} and \function{urlretrieve()} functions can
cause arbitrarily long delays while waiting for a network connection
to be set up.  This means that it is difficult to build an interactive
web client using these functions without using threads.

\item
The data returned by \function{urlopen()} or \function{urlretrieve()}
is the raw data returned by the server.  This may be binary data
(e.g. an image), plain text or (for example) HTML.  The HTTP protocol
provides type information in the reply header, which can be inspected
by looking at the \code{content-type} header.  For the Gopher protocol,
type information is encoded in the URL; there is currently no easy way
to extract it.  If the returned data is HTML, you can use the module
\module{htmllib}\refstmodindex{htmllib} to parse it.
\index{HTML}
\indexii{HTTP}{protocol}
\indexii{Gopher}{protocol}

\item
Although the \module{urllib} module contains (undocumented) routines
to parse and unparse URL strings, the recommended interface for URL
manipulation is in module \module{urlparse}\refstmodindex{urlparse}.

\end{itemize}