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Georg Brandl8175dae2010-11-29 14:53:15 +00001:mod:`urllib.request` --- Extensible library for opening URLs
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00002=============================================================
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00003
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00004.. module:: urllib.request
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -07005 :synopsis: Extensible library for opening URLs.
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +00006.. moduleauthor:: Jeremy Hylton <jeremy@alum.mit.edu>
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00007.. sectionauthor:: Moshe Zadka <moshez@users.sourceforge.net>
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -07008.. sectionauthor:: Senthil Kumaran <senthil@uthcode.com>
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00009
10
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +000011The :mod:`urllib.request` module defines functions and classes which help in
12opening URLs (mostly HTTP) in a complex world --- basic and digest
13authentication, redirections, cookies and more.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000014
Antoine Pitrou79ecd762010-09-29 11:24:21 +000015
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +000016The :mod:`urllib.request` module defines the following functions:
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000017
18
Senthil Kumaran8b7e1612014-09-19 15:23:30 +080019.. function:: urlopen(url, data=None[, timeout], *, cafile=None, capath=None, cadefault=False, context=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000020
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +000021 Open the URL *url*, which can be either a string or a
22 :class:`Request` object.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000023
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -070024 *data* must be a bytes object specifying additional data to be sent to the
Senthil Kumaran7bc0d872010-12-19 10:49:52 +000025 server, or ``None`` if no such data is needed. *data* may also be an
26 iterable object and in that case Content-Length value must be specified in
27 the headers. Currently HTTP requests are the only ones that use *data*; the
28 HTTP request will be a POST instead of a GET when the *data* parameter is
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -070029 provided.
30
31 *data* should be a buffer in the standard
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000032 :mimetype:`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` format. The
Senthil Kumaran7bc0d872010-12-19 10:49:52 +000033 :func:`urllib.parse.urlencode` function takes a mapping or sequence of
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -070034 2-tuples and returns a string in this format. It should be encoded to bytes
35 before being used as the *data* parameter. The charset parameter in
36 ``Content-Type`` header may be used to specify the encoding. If charset
37 parameter is not sent with the Content-Type header, the server following the
38 HTTP 1.1 recommendation may assume that the data is encoded in ISO-8859-1
39 encoding. It is advisable to use charset parameter with encoding used in
40 ``Content-Type`` header with the :class:`Request`.
41
42 urllib.request module uses HTTP/1.1 and includes ``Connection:close`` header
43 in its HTTP requests.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000044
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +000045 The optional *timeout* parameter specifies a timeout in seconds for
46 blocking operations like the connection attempt (if not specified,
47 the global default timeout setting will be used). This actually
Senthil Kumaranc08d9072010-10-05 18:46:56 +000048 only works for HTTP, HTTPS and FTP connections.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000049
Senthil Kumaran8b7e1612014-09-19 15:23:30 +080050 If *context* is specified, it must be a :class:`ssl.SSLContext` instance
Benjamin Petersona5c9c372014-11-02 13:17:56 -050051 describing the various SSL options. See :class:`~http.client.HTTPSConnection`
52 for more details.
Senthil Kumaran8b7e1612014-09-19 15:23:30 +080053
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +000054 The optional *cafile* and *capath* parameters specify a set of trusted
55 CA certificates for HTTPS requests. *cafile* should point to a single
56 file containing a bundle of CA certificates, whereas *capath* should
57 point to a directory of hashed certificate files. More information can
58 be found in :meth:`ssl.SSLContext.load_verify_locations`.
59
Antoine Pitroude9ac6c2012-05-16 21:40:01 +020060 The *cadefault* parameter specifies whether to fall back to loading a
61 default certificate store defined by the underlying OpenSSL library if the
62 *cafile* and *capath* parameters are omitted. This will only work on
63 some non-Windows platforms.
64
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080065 For http and https urls, this function returns a
66 :class:`http.client.HTTPResponse` object which has the following
67 :ref:`httpresponse-objects` methods.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000068
Senthil Kumarand03f4672013-02-07 21:43:21 -080069 For ftp, file, and data urls and requests explicity handled by legacy
70 :class:`URLopener` and :class:`FancyURLopener` classes, this function
71 returns a :class:`urllib.response.addinfourl` object which can work as
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080072 :term:`context manager` and has methods such as
73
74 * :meth:`~urllib.response.addinfourl.geturl` --- return the URL of the resource retrieved,
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +000075 commonly used to determine if a redirect was followed
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000076
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080077 * :meth:`~urllib.response.addinfourl.info` --- return the meta-information of the page, such as headers,
Senthil Kumaran13a7eb42010-06-28 17:31:40 +000078 in the form of an :func:`email.message_from_string` instance (see
79 `Quick Reference to HTTP Headers <http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/http.html>`_)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000080
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080081 * :meth:`~urllib.response.addinfourl.getcode` -- return the HTTP status code of the response.
82
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +030083 Raises :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError` on errors.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000084
Georg Brandl2dd01042009-02-27 16:46:46 +000085 Note that ``None`` may be returned if no handler handles the request (though
86 the default installed global :class:`OpenerDirector` uses
87 :class:`UnknownHandler` to ensure this never happens).
88
R David Murray5aea37a2013-04-28 11:07:16 -040089 In addition, if proxy settings are detected (for example, when a ``*_proxy``
90 environment variable like :envvar:`http_proxy` is set),
91 :class:`ProxyHandler` is default installed and makes sure the requests are
92 handled through the proxy.
Senthil Kumarana51a1b32009-10-18 01:42:33 +000093
Georg Brandl2dd01042009-02-27 16:46:46 +000094 The legacy ``urllib.urlopen`` function from Python 2.6 and earlier has been
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -070095 discontinued; :func:`urllib.request.urlopen` corresponds to the old
96 ``urllib2.urlopen``. Proxy handling, which was done by passing a dictionary
97 parameter to ``urllib.urlopen``, can be obtained by using
98 :class:`ProxyHandler` objects.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000099
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +0000100 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
101 *cafile* and *capath* were added.
102
Antoine Pitroud5323212010-10-22 18:19:07 +0000103 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
104 HTTPS virtual hosts are now supported if possible (that is, if
105 :data:`ssl.HAS_SNI` is true).
106
Senthil Kumaran7bc0d872010-12-19 10:49:52 +0000107 .. versionadded:: 3.2
108 *data* can be an iterable object.
109
Antoine Pitroude9ac6c2012-05-16 21:40:01 +0200110 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
111 *cadefault* was added.
112
Senthil Kumaran8b7e1612014-09-19 15:23:30 +0800113 .. versionchanged:: 3.4.3
114 *context* was added.
115
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000116.. function:: install_opener(opener)
117
118 Install an :class:`OpenerDirector` instance as the default global opener.
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700119 Installing an opener is only necessary if you want urlopen to use that
120 opener; otherwise, simply call :meth:`OpenerDirector.open` instead of
121 :func:`~urllib.request.urlopen`. The code does not check for a real
122 :class:`OpenerDirector`, and any class with the appropriate interface will
123 work.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000124
125
126.. function:: build_opener([handler, ...])
127
128 Return an :class:`OpenerDirector` instance, which chains the handlers in the
129 order given. *handler*\s can be either instances of :class:`BaseHandler`, or
130 subclasses of :class:`BaseHandler` (in which case it must be possible to call
131 the constructor without any parameters). Instances of the following classes
132 will be in front of the *handler*\s, unless the *handler*\s contain them,
R David Murray5aea37a2013-04-28 11:07:16 -0400133 instances of them or subclasses of them: :class:`ProxyHandler` (if proxy
R David Murray9330a942013-04-28 11:24:35 -0400134 settings are detected), :class:`UnknownHandler`, :class:`HTTPHandler`,
135 :class:`HTTPDefaultErrorHandler`, :class:`HTTPRedirectHandler`,
136 :class:`FTPHandler`, :class:`FileHandler`, :class:`HTTPErrorProcessor`.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000137
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000138 If the Python installation has SSL support (i.e., if the :mod:`ssl` module
139 can be imported), :class:`HTTPSHandler` will also be added.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000140
Georg Brandle6bcc912008-05-12 18:05:20 +0000141 A :class:`BaseHandler` subclass may also change its :attr:`handler_order`
Senthil Kumarana6bac952011-07-04 11:28:30 -0700142 attribute to modify its position in the handlers list.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000143
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000144
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +0000145.. function:: pathname2url(path)
Christian Heimes292d3512008-02-03 16:51:08 +0000146
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +0000147 Convert the pathname *path* from the local syntax for a path to the form used in
148 the path component of a URL. This does not produce a complete URL. The return
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300149 value will already be quoted using the :func:`~urllib.parse.quote` function.
Christian Heimes292d3512008-02-03 16:51:08 +0000150
151
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +0000152.. function:: url2pathname(path)
153
Senthil Kumaranf0769e82010-08-09 19:53:52 +0000154 Convert the path component *path* from a percent-encoded URL to the local syntax for a
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300155 path. This does not accept a complete URL. This function uses
156 :func:`~urllib.parse.unquote` to decode *path*.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000157
Senthil Kumaran7e557a62010-02-26 00:53:23 +0000158.. function:: getproxies()
159
160 This helper function returns a dictionary of scheme to proxy server URL
Senthil Kumaran19d85c22012-01-11 01:29:08 +0800161 mappings. It scans the environment for variables named ``<scheme>_proxy``,
162 in a case insensitive approach, for all operating systems first, and when it
163 cannot find it, looks for proxy information from Mac OSX System
164 Configuration for Mac OS X and Windows Systems Registry for Windows.
Senthil Kumaran7e557a62010-02-26 00:53:23 +0000165
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000166
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000167The following classes are provided:
168
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800169.. class:: Request(url, data=None, headers={}, origin_req_host=None, unverifiable=False, method=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000170
171 This class is an abstraction of a URL request.
172
173 *url* should be a string containing a valid URL.
174
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700175 *data* must be a bytes object specifying additional data to send to the
Senthil Kumaran87684e62012-03-14 18:08:13 -0700176 server, or ``None`` if no such data is needed. Currently HTTP requests are
177 the only ones that use *data*; the HTTP request will be a POST instead of a
178 GET when the *data* parameter is provided. *data* should be a buffer in the
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700179 standard :mimetype:`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` format.
180
181 The :func:`urllib.parse.urlencode` function takes a mapping or sequence of
182 2-tuples and returns a string in this format. It should be encoded to bytes
183 before being used as the *data* parameter. The charset parameter in
184 ``Content-Type`` header may be used to specify the encoding. If charset
185 parameter is not sent with the Content-Type header, the server following the
186 HTTP 1.1 recommendation may assume that the data is encoded in ISO-8859-1
187 encoding. It is advisable to use charset parameter with encoding used in
188 ``Content-Type`` header with the :class:`Request`.
189
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000190
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000191 *headers* should be a dictionary, and will be treated as if
192 :meth:`add_header` was called with each key and value as arguments.
193 This is often used to "spoof" the ``User-Agent`` header, which is
194 used by a browser to identify itself -- some HTTP servers only
195 allow requests coming from common browsers as opposed to scripts.
196 For example, Mozilla Firefox may identify itself as ``"Mozilla/5.0
197 (X11; U; Linux i686) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11"``, while
198 :mod:`urllib`'s default user agent string is
199 ``"Python-urllib/2.6"`` (on Python 2.6).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000200
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700201 An example of using ``Content-Type`` header with *data* argument would be
202 sending a dictionary like ``{"Content-Type":" application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=utf-8"}``
203
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000204 The final two arguments are only of interest for correct handling
205 of third-party HTTP cookies:
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000206
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000207 *origin_req_host* should be the request-host of the origin
208 transaction, as defined by :rfc:`2965`. It defaults to
209 ``http.cookiejar.request_host(self)``. This is the host name or IP
210 address of the original request that was initiated by the user.
211 For example, if the request is for an image in an HTML document,
212 this should be the request-host of the request for the page
Georg Brandl24420152008-05-26 16:32:26 +0000213 containing the image.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000214
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000215 *unverifiable* should indicate whether the request is unverifiable,
Serhiy Storchakafbc1c262013-11-29 12:17:13 +0200216 as defined by RFC 2965. It defaults to ``False``. An unverifiable
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000217 request is one whose URL the user did not have the option to
218 approve. For example, if the request is for an image in an HTML
219 document, and the user had no option to approve the automatic
220 fetching of the image, this should be true.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000221
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800222 *method* should be a string that indicates the HTTP request method that
Larry Hastings3732ed22014-03-15 21:13:56 -0700223 will be used (e.g. ``'HEAD'``). If provided, its value is stored in the
Senthil Kumarana41c9422011-10-20 02:37:08 +0800224 :attr:`~Request.method` attribute and is used by :meth:`get_method()`.
Jason R. Coombs0c47f342013-09-22 09:33:45 -0400225 Subclasses may indicate a default method by setting the
226 :attr:`~Request.method` attribute in the class itself.
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800227
228 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
Georg Brandl61063cc2012-06-24 22:48:30 +0200229 :attr:`Request.method` argument is added to the Request class.
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800230
Jason R. Coombs0c47f342013-09-22 09:33:45 -0400231 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
232 Default :attr:`Request.method` may be indicated at the class level.
233
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000234
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000235.. class:: OpenerDirector()
236
237 The :class:`OpenerDirector` class opens URLs via :class:`BaseHandler`\ s chained
238 together. It manages the chaining of handlers, and recovery from errors.
239
240
241.. class:: BaseHandler()
242
243 This is the base class for all registered handlers --- and handles only the
244 simple mechanics of registration.
245
246
247.. class:: HTTPDefaultErrorHandler()
248
249 A class which defines a default handler for HTTP error responses; all responses
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300250 are turned into :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` exceptions.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000251
252
253.. class:: HTTPRedirectHandler()
254
255 A class to handle redirections.
256
257
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000258.. class:: HTTPCookieProcessor(cookiejar=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000259
260 A class to handle HTTP Cookies.
261
262
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000263.. class:: ProxyHandler(proxies=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000264
265 Cause requests to go through a proxy. If *proxies* is given, it must be a
R David Murray9330a942013-04-28 11:24:35 -0400266 dictionary mapping protocol names to URLs of proxies. The default is to read
267 the list of proxies from the environment variables
268 :envvar:`<protocol>_proxy`. If no proxy environment variables are set, then
269 in a Windows environment proxy settings are obtained from the registry's
270 Internet Settings section, and in a Mac OS X environment proxy information
271 is retrieved from the OS X System Configuration Framework.
Senthil Kumarana51a1b32009-10-18 01:42:33 +0000272
Christian Heimese25f35e2008-03-20 10:49:03 +0000273 To disable autodetected proxy pass an empty dictionary.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000274
275
276.. class:: HTTPPasswordMgr()
277
278 Keep a database of ``(realm, uri) -> (user, password)`` mappings.
279
280
281.. class:: HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm()
282
283 Keep a database of ``(realm, uri) -> (user, password)`` mappings. A realm of
284 ``None`` is considered a catch-all realm, which is searched if no other realm
285 fits.
286
287
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000288.. class:: AbstractBasicAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000289
290 This is a mixin class that helps with HTTP authentication, both to the remote
291 host and to a proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be something that is
292 compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
293 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
294 supported.
295
296
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000297.. class:: HTTPBasicAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000298
Senthil Kumaran4de00a22011-05-11 21:17:57 +0800299 Handle authentication with the remote host. *password_mgr*, if given, should
300 be something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to
301 section :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must
302 be supported. HTTPBasicAuthHandler will raise a :exc:`ValueError` when
303 presented with a wrong Authentication scheme.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000304
305
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000306.. class:: ProxyBasicAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000307
308 Handle authentication with the proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be
309 something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
310 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
311 supported.
312
313
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000314.. class:: AbstractDigestAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000315
316 This is a mixin class that helps with HTTP authentication, both to the remote
317 host and to a proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be something that is
318 compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
319 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
320 supported.
321
322
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000323.. class:: HTTPDigestAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000324
Senthil Kumaran4de00a22011-05-11 21:17:57 +0800325 Handle authentication with the remote host. *password_mgr*, if given, should
326 be something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to
327 section :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must
328 be supported. When both Digest Authentication Handler and Basic
329 Authentication Handler are both added, Digest Authentication is always tried
330 first. If the Digest Authentication returns a 40x response again, it is sent
331 to Basic Authentication handler to Handle. This Handler method will raise a
332 :exc:`ValueError` when presented with an authentication scheme other than
333 Digest or Basic.
334
Ezio Melottie9c7d6c2011-05-12 01:10:57 +0300335 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
336 Raise :exc:`ValueError` on unsupported Authentication Scheme.
Senthil Kumaran4de00a22011-05-11 21:17:57 +0800337
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000338
339
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000340.. class:: ProxyDigestAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000341
342 Handle authentication with the proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be
343 something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
344 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
345 supported.
346
347
348.. class:: HTTPHandler()
349
350 A class to handle opening of HTTP URLs.
351
352
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +0000353.. class:: HTTPSHandler(debuglevel=0, context=None, check_hostname=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000354
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +0000355 A class to handle opening of HTTPS URLs. *context* and *check_hostname*
356 have the same meaning as in :class:`http.client.HTTPSConnection`.
357
358 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
359 *context* and *check_hostname* were added.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000360
361
362.. class:: FileHandler()
363
364 Open local files.
365
Antoine Pitroudf204be2012-11-24 17:59:08 +0100366.. class:: DataHandler()
367
368 Open data URLs.
369
370 .. versionadded:: 3.4
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000371
372.. class:: FTPHandler()
373
374 Open FTP URLs.
375
376
377.. class:: CacheFTPHandler()
378
379 Open FTP URLs, keeping a cache of open FTP connections to minimize delays.
380
381
382.. class:: UnknownHandler()
383
384 A catch-all class to handle unknown URLs.
385
386
Senthil Kumaraned270fa2011-07-18 06:42:46 +0800387.. class:: HTTPErrorProcessor()
388
389 Process HTTP error responses.
390
391
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000392.. _request-objects:
393
394Request Objects
395---------------
396
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000397The following methods describe :class:`Request`'s public interface,
398and so all may be overridden in subclasses. It also defines several
399public attributes that can be used by clients to inspect the parsed
400request.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000401
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000402.. attribute:: Request.full_url
403
404 The original URL passed to the constructor.
405
Senthil Kumaran83070752013-05-24 09:14:12 -0700406 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
407
408 Request.full_url is a property with setter, getter and a deleter. Getting
409 :attr:`~Request.full_url` returns the original request URL with the
410 fragment, if it was present.
411
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000412.. attribute:: Request.type
413
414 The URI scheme.
415
416.. attribute:: Request.host
417
418 The URI authority, typically a host, but may also contain a port
419 separated by a colon.
420
421.. attribute:: Request.origin_req_host
422
423 The original host for the request, without port.
424
425.. attribute:: Request.selector
426
427 The URI path. If the :class:`Request` uses a proxy, then selector
428 will be the full url that is passed to the proxy.
429
430.. attribute:: Request.data
431
432 The entity body for the request, or None if not specified.
433
Andrew Svetlovbff98fe2012-11-27 23:06:19 +0200434 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
435 Changing value of :attr:`Request.data` now deletes "Content-Length"
436 header if it was previously set or calculated.
437
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000438.. attribute:: Request.unverifiable
439
440 boolean, indicates whether the request is unverifiable as defined
441 by RFC 2965.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000442
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800443.. attribute:: Request.method
444
Larry Hastings3732ed22014-03-15 21:13:56 -0700445 The HTTP request method to use. By default its value is :const:`None`,
446 which means that :meth:`~Request.get_method` will do its normal computation
447 of the method to be used. Its value can be set (thus overriding the default
448 computation in :meth:`~Request.get_method`) either by providing a default
449 value by setting it at the class level in a :class:`Request` subclass, or by
450 passing a value in to the :class:`Request` constructor via the *method*
451 argument.
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800452
Senthil Kumarana41c9422011-10-20 02:37:08 +0800453 .. versionadded:: 3.3
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800454
Larry Hastings3732ed22014-03-15 21:13:56 -0700455 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
456 A default value can now be set in subclasses; previously it could only
457 be set via the constructor argument.
458
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000459
460.. method:: Request.get_method()
461
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800462 Return a string indicating the HTTP request method. If
463 :attr:`Request.method` is not ``None``, return its value, otherwise return
464 ``'GET'`` if :attr:`Request.data` is ``None``, or ``'POST'`` if it's not.
465 This is only meaningful for HTTP requests.
466
Florent Xicluna95483b62011-10-19 11:44:51 +0200467 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
Senthil Kumarana41c9422011-10-20 02:37:08 +0800468 get_method now looks at the value of :attr:`Request.method`.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000469
470
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000471.. method:: Request.add_header(key, val)
472
473 Add another header to the request. Headers are currently ignored by all
474 handlers except HTTP handlers, where they are added to the list of headers sent
475 to the server. Note that there cannot be more than one header with the same
476 name, and later calls will overwrite previous calls in case the *key* collides.
477 Currently, this is no loss of HTTP functionality, since all headers which have
478 meaning when used more than once have a (header-specific) way of gaining the
479 same functionality using only one header.
480
481
482.. method:: Request.add_unredirected_header(key, header)
483
484 Add a header that will not be added to a redirected request.
485
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000486
487.. method:: Request.has_header(header)
488
489 Return whether the instance has the named header (checks both regular and
490 unredirected).
491
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000492
Andrew Svetlovbff98fe2012-11-27 23:06:19 +0200493.. method:: Request.remove_header(header)
494
495 Remove named header from the request instance (both from regular and
496 unredirected headers).
497
Georg Brandlc0fc9582012-12-22 10:36:45 +0100498 .. versionadded:: 3.4
499
Andrew Svetlovbff98fe2012-11-27 23:06:19 +0200500
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000501.. method:: Request.get_full_url()
502
503 Return the URL given in the constructor.
504
Senthil Kumaran83070752013-05-24 09:14:12 -0700505 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
506
507 Returns :attr:`Request.full_url`
508
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000509
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000510.. method:: Request.set_proxy(host, type)
511
512 Prepare the request by connecting to a proxy server. The *host* and *type* will
513 replace those of the instance, and the instance's selector will be the original
514 URL given in the constructor.
515
516
Senthil Kumaran8dc50042012-04-29 11:50:39 +0800517.. method:: Request.get_header(header_name, default=None)
518
519 Return the value of the given header. If the header is not present, return
520 the default value.
521
522
523.. method:: Request.header_items()
524
525 Return a list of tuples (header_name, header_value) of the Request headers.
526
Senthil Kumaran6ddec172013-03-19 18:03:39 -0700527.. versionchanged:: 3.4
Georg Brandldf48b972014-03-24 09:06:18 +0100528 The request methods add_data, has_data, get_data, get_type, get_host,
529 get_selector, get_origin_req_host and is_unverifiable that were deprecated
530 since 3.3 have been removed.
531
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000532
533.. _opener-director-objects:
534
535OpenerDirector Objects
536----------------------
537
538:class:`OpenerDirector` instances have the following methods:
539
540
541.. method:: OpenerDirector.add_handler(handler)
542
543 *handler* should be an instance of :class:`BaseHandler`. The following methods
544 are searched, and added to the possible chains (note that HTTP errors are a
545 special case).
546
547 * :meth:`protocol_open` --- signal that the handler knows how to open *protocol*
548 URLs.
549
550 * :meth:`http_error_type` --- signal that the handler knows how to handle HTTP
551 errors with HTTP error code *type*.
552
553 * :meth:`protocol_error` --- signal that the handler knows how to handle errors
554 from (non-\ ``http``) *protocol*.
555
556 * :meth:`protocol_request` --- signal that the handler knows how to pre-process
557 *protocol* requests.
558
559 * :meth:`protocol_response` --- signal that the handler knows how to
560 post-process *protocol* responses.
561
562
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000563.. method:: OpenerDirector.open(url, data=None[, timeout])
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000564
565 Open the given *url* (which can be a request object or a string), optionally
Alexandre Vassalotti5f8ced22008-05-16 00:03:33 +0000566 passing the given *data*. Arguments, return values and exceptions raised are
567 the same as those of :func:`urlopen` (which simply calls the :meth:`open`
568 method on the currently installed global :class:`OpenerDirector`). The
569 optional *timeout* parameter specifies a timeout in seconds for blocking
Georg Brandlf78e02b2008-06-10 17:40:04 +0000570 operations like the connection attempt (if not specified, the global default
Georg Brandl325524e2010-05-21 20:57:33 +0000571 timeout setting will be used). The timeout feature actually works only for
Senthil Kumaranc08d9072010-10-05 18:46:56 +0000572 HTTP, HTTPS and FTP connections).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000573
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000574
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000575.. method:: OpenerDirector.error(proto, *args)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000576
577 Handle an error of the given protocol. This will call the registered error
578 handlers for the given protocol with the given arguments (which are protocol
579 specific). The HTTP protocol is a special case which uses the HTTP response
580 code to determine the specific error handler; refer to the :meth:`http_error_\*`
581 methods of the handler classes.
582
583 Return values and exceptions raised are the same as those of :func:`urlopen`.
584
585OpenerDirector objects open URLs in three stages:
586
587The order in which these methods are called within each stage is determined by
588sorting the handler instances.
589
590#. Every handler with a method named like :meth:`protocol_request` has that
591 method called to pre-process the request.
592
593#. Handlers with a method named like :meth:`protocol_open` are called to handle
594 the request. This stage ends when a handler either returns a non-\ :const:`None`
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300595 value (ie. a response), or raises an exception (usually
596 :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError`). Exceptions are allowed to propagate.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000597
598 In fact, the above algorithm is first tried for methods named
599 :meth:`default_open`. If all such methods return :const:`None`, the algorithm
600 is repeated for methods named like :meth:`protocol_open`. If all such methods
601 return :const:`None`, the algorithm is repeated for methods named
602 :meth:`unknown_open`.
603
604 Note that the implementation of these methods may involve calls of the parent
Georg Brandla5eacee2010-07-23 16:55:26 +0000605 :class:`OpenerDirector` instance's :meth:`~OpenerDirector.open` and
606 :meth:`~OpenerDirector.error` methods.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000607
608#. Every handler with a method named like :meth:`protocol_response` has that
609 method called to post-process the response.
610
611
612.. _base-handler-objects:
613
614BaseHandler Objects
615-------------------
616
617:class:`BaseHandler` objects provide a couple of methods that are directly
618useful, and others that are meant to be used by derived classes. These are
619intended for direct use:
620
621
622.. method:: BaseHandler.add_parent(director)
623
624 Add a director as parent.
625
626
627.. method:: BaseHandler.close()
628
629 Remove any parents.
630
Senthil Kumarana6bac952011-07-04 11:28:30 -0700631The following attribute and methods should only be used by classes derived from
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000632:class:`BaseHandler`.
633
634.. note::
635
636 The convention has been adopted that subclasses defining
637 :meth:`protocol_request` or :meth:`protocol_response` methods are named
638 :class:`\*Processor`; all others are named :class:`\*Handler`.
639
640
641.. attribute:: BaseHandler.parent
642
643 A valid :class:`OpenerDirector`, which can be used to open using a different
644 protocol, or handle errors.
645
646
647.. method:: BaseHandler.default_open(req)
648
649 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
650 define it if they want to catch all URLs.
651
652 This method, if implemented, will be called by the parent
653 :class:`OpenerDirector`. It should return a file-like object as described in
654 the return value of the :meth:`open` of :class:`OpenerDirector`, or ``None``.
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300655 It should raise :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError`, unless a truly exceptional
656 thing happens (for example, :exc:`MemoryError` should not be mapped to
657 :exc:`URLError`).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000658
659 This method will be called before any protocol-specific open method.
660
661
662.. method:: BaseHandler.protocol_open(req)
663 :noindex:
664
665 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
666 define it if they want to handle URLs with the given protocol.
667
668 This method, if defined, will be called by the parent :class:`OpenerDirector`.
669 Return values should be the same as for :meth:`default_open`.
670
671
672.. method:: BaseHandler.unknown_open(req)
673
674 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
675 define it if they want to catch all URLs with no specific registered handler to
676 open it.
677
678 This method, if implemented, will be called by the :attr:`parent`
679 :class:`OpenerDirector`. Return values should be the same as for
680 :meth:`default_open`.
681
682
683.. method:: BaseHandler.http_error_default(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
684
685 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
686 override it if they intend to provide a catch-all for otherwise unhandled HTTP
687 errors. It will be called automatically by the :class:`OpenerDirector` getting
688 the error, and should not normally be called in other circumstances.
689
690 *req* will be a :class:`Request` object, *fp* will be a file-like object with
691 the HTTP error body, *code* will be the three-digit code of the error, *msg*
692 will be the user-visible explanation of the code and *hdrs* will be a mapping
693 object with the headers of the error.
694
695 Return values and exceptions raised should be the same as those of
696 :func:`urlopen`.
697
698
699.. method:: BaseHandler.http_error_nnn(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
700
701 *nnn* should be a three-digit HTTP error code. This method is also not defined
702 in :class:`BaseHandler`, but will be called, if it exists, on an instance of a
703 subclass, when an HTTP error with code *nnn* occurs.
704
705 Subclasses should override this method to handle specific HTTP errors.
706
707 Arguments, return values and exceptions raised should be the same as for
708 :meth:`http_error_default`.
709
710
711.. method:: BaseHandler.protocol_request(req)
712 :noindex:
713
714 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
715 define it if they want to pre-process requests of the given protocol.
716
717 This method, if defined, will be called by the parent :class:`OpenerDirector`.
718 *req* will be a :class:`Request` object. The return value should be a
719 :class:`Request` object.
720
721
722.. method:: BaseHandler.protocol_response(req, response)
723 :noindex:
724
725 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
726 define it if they want to post-process responses of the given protocol.
727
728 This method, if defined, will be called by the parent :class:`OpenerDirector`.
729 *req* will be a :class:`Request` object. *response* will be an object
730 implementing the same interface as the return value of :func:`urlopen`. The
731 return value should implement the same interface as the return value of
732 :func:`urlopen`.
733
734
735.. _http-redirect-handler:
736
737HTTPRedirectHandler Objects
738---------------------------
739
740.. note::
741
742 Some HTTP redirections require action from this module's client code. If this
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300743 is the case, :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` is raised. See :rfc:`2616` for
744 details of the precise meanings of the various redirection codes.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000745
guido@google.coma119df92011-03-29 11:41:02 -0700746 An :class:`HTTPError` exception raised as a security consideration if the
747 HTTPRedirectHandler is presented with a redirected url which is not an HTTP,
748 HTTPS or FTP url.
749
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000750
Georg Brandl9617a592009-02-13 10:40:43 +0000751.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.redirect_request(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs, newurl)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000752
753 Return a :class:`Request` or ``None`` in response to a redirect. This is called
754 by the default implementations of the :meth:`http_error_30\*` methods when a
755 redirection is received from the server. If a redirection should take place,
756 return a new :class:`Request` to allow :meth:`http_error_30\*` to perform the
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300757 redirect to *newurl*. Otherwise, raise :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` if
758 no other handler should try to handle this URL, or return ``None`` if you
759 can't but another handler might.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000760
761 .. note::
762
763 The default implementation of this method does not strictly follow :rfc:`2616`,
764 which says that 301 and 302 responses to ``POST`` requests must not be
765 automatically redirected without confirmation by the user. In reality, browsers
766 do allow automatic redirection of these responses, changing the POST to a
767 ``GET``, and the default implementation reproduces this behavior.
768
769
770.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_301(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
771
Georg Brandl9617a592009-02-13 10:40:43 +0000772 Redirect to the ``Location:`` or ``URI:`` URL. This method is called by the
773 parent :class:`OpenerDirector` when getting an HTTP 'moved permanently' response.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000774
775
776.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_302(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
777
778 The same as :meth:`http_error_301`, but called for the 'found' response.
779
780
781.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_303(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
782
783 The same as :meth:`http_error_301`, but called for the 'see other' response.
784
785
786.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_307(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
787
788 The same as :meth:`http_error_301`, but called for the 'temporary redirect'
789 response.
790
791
792.. _http-cookie-processor:
793
794HTTPCookieProcessor Objects
795---------------------------
796
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000797:class:`HTTPCookieProcessor` instances have one attribute:
798
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000799.. attribute:: HTTPCookieProcessor.cookiejar
800
Georg Brandl24420152008-05-26 16:32:26 +0000801 The :class:`http.cookiejar.CookieJar` in which cookies are stored.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000802
803
804.. _proxy-handler:
805
806ProxyHandler Objects
807--------------------
808
809
810.. method:: ProxyHandler.protocol_open(request)
811 :noindex:
812
813 The :class:`ProxyHandler` will have a method :meth:`protocol_open` for every
814 *protocol* which has a proxy in the *proxies* dictionary given in the
815 constructor. The method will modify requests to go through the proxy, by
816 calling ``request.set_proxy()``, and call the next handler in the chain to
817 actually execute the protocol.
818
819
820.. _http-password-mgr:
821
822HTTPPasswordMgr Objects
823-----------------------
824
825These methods are available on :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr` and
826:class:`HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm` objects.
827
828
829.. method:: HTTPPasswordMgr.add_password(realm, uri, user, passwd)
830
831 *uri* can be either a single URI, or a sequence of URIs. *realm*, *user* and
832 *passwd* must be strings. This causes ``(user, passwd)`` to be used as
833 authentication tokens when authentication for *realm* and a super-URI of any of
834 the given URIs is given.
835
836
837.. method:: HTTPPasswordMgr.find_user_password(realm, authuri)
838
839 Get user/password for given realm and URI, if any. This method will return
840 ``(None, None)`` if there is no matching user/password.
841
842 For :class:`HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm` objects, the realm ``None`` will be
843 searched if the given *realm* has no matching user/password.
844
845
846.. _abstract-basic-auth-handler:
847
848AbstractBasicAuthHandler Objects
849--------------------------------
850
851
852.. method:: AbstractBasicAuthHandler.http_error_auth_reqed(authreq, host, req, headers)
853
854 Handle an authentication request by getting a user/password pair, and re-trying
855 the request. *authreq* should be the name of the header where the information
856 about the realm is included in the request, *host* specifies the URL and path to
857 authenticate for, *req* should be the (failed) :class:`Request` object, and
858 *headers* should be the error headers.
859
860 *host* is either an authority (e.g. ``"python.org"``) or a URL containing an
861 authority component (e.g. ``"http://python.org/"``). In either case, the
862 authority must not contain a userinfo component (so, ``"python.org"`` and
863 ``"python.org:80"`` are fine, ``"joe:password@python.org"`` is not).
864
865
866.. _http-basic-auth-handler:
867
868HTTPBasicAuthHandler Objects
869----------------------------
870
871
872.. method:: HTTPBasicAuthHandler.http_error_401(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
873
874 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
875
876
877.. _proxy-basic-auth-handler:
878
879ProxyBasicAuthHandler Objects
880-----------------------------
881
882
883.. method:: ProxyBasicAuthHandler.http_error_407(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
884
885 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
886
887
888.. _abstract-digest-auth-handler:
889
890AbstractDigestAuthHandler Objects
891---------------------------------
892
893
894.. method:: AbstractDigestAuthHandler.http_error_auth_reqed(authreq, host, req, headers)
895
896 *authreq* should be the name of the header where the information about the realm
897 is included in the request, *host* should be the host to authenticate to, *req*
898 should be the (failed) :class:`Request` object, and *headers* should be the
899 error headers.
900
901
902.. _http-digest-auth-handler:
903
904HTTPDigestAuthHandler Objects
905-----------------------------
906
907
908.. method:: HTTPDigestAuthHandler.http_error_401(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
909
910 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
911
912
913.. _proxy-digest-auth-handler:
914
915ProxyDigestAuthHandler Objects
916------------------------------
917
918
919.. method:: ProxyDigestAuthHandler.http_error_407(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
920
921 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
922
923
924.. _http-handler-objects:
925
926HTTPHandler Objects
927-------------------
928
929
930.. method:: HTTPHandler.http_open(req)
931
932 Send an HTTP request, which can be either GET or POST, depending on
933 ``req.has_data()``.
934
935
936.. _https-handler-objects:
937
938HTTPSHandler Objects
939--------------------
940
941
942.. method:: HTTPSHandler.https_open(req)
943
944 Send an HTTPS request, which can be either GET or POST, depending on
945 ``req.has_data()``.
946
947
948.. _file-handler-objects:
949
950FileHandler Objects
951-------------------
952
953
954.. method:: FileHandler.file_open(req)
955
956 Open the file locally, if there is no host name, or the host name is
Senthil Kumaran383c32d2010-10-14 11:57:35 +0000957 ``'localhost'``.
958
Georg Brandl61063cc2012-06-24 22:48:30 +0200959 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
960 This method is applicable only for local hostnames. When a remote
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300961 hostname is given, an :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError` is raised.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000962
963
Antoine Pitroudf204be2012-11-24 17:59:08 +0100964.. _data-handler-objects:
965
966DataHandler Objects
967-------------------
968
969.. method:: DataHandler.data_open(req)
970
971 Read a data URL. This kind of URL contains the content encoded in the URL
972 itself. The data URL syntax is specified in :rfc:`2397`. This implementation
973 ignores white spaces in base64 encoded data URLs so the URL may be wrapped
974 in whatever source file it comes from. But even though some browsers don't
975 mind about a missing padding at the end of a base64 encoded data URL, this
976 implementation will raise an :exc:`ValueError` in that case.
977
978
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000979.. _ftp-handler-objects:
980
981FTPHandler Objects
982------------------
983
984
985.. method:: FTPHandler.ftp_open(req)
986
987 Open the FTP file indicated by *req*. The login is always done with empty
988 username and password.
989
990
991.. _cacheftp-handler-objects:
992
993CacheFTPHandler Objects
994-----------------------
995
996:class:`CacheFTPHandler` objects are :class:`FTPHandler` objects with the
997following additional methods:
998
999
1000.. method:: CacheFTPHandler.setTimeout(t)
1001
1002 Set timeout of connections to *t* seconds.
1003
1004
1005.. method:: CacheFTPHandler.setMaxConns(m)
1006
1007 Set maximum number of cached connections to *m*.
1008
1009
1010.. _unknown-handler-objects:
1011
1012UnknownHandler Objects
1013----------------------
1014
1015
1016.. method:: UnknownHandler.unknown_open()
1017
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001018 Raise a :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError` exception.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001019
1020
1021.. _http-error-processor-objects:
1022
1023HTTPErrorProcessor Objects
1024--------------------------
1025
Senthil Kumaran0215d092011-07-18 07:12:40 +08001026.. method:: HTTPErrorProcessor.http_response()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001027
1028 Process HTTP error responses.
1029
1030 For 200 error codes, the response object is returned immediately.
1031
1032 For non-200 error codes, this simply passes the job on to the
1033 :meth:`protocol_error_code` handler methods, via :meth:`OpenerDirector.error`.
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001034 Eventually, :class:`HTTPDefaultErrorHandler` will raise an
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001035 :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` if no other handler handles the error.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001036
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001037
Senthil Kumaran0215d092011-07-18 07:12:40 +08001038.. method:: HTTPErrorProcessor.https_response()
1039
Senthil Kumaran3e7f33f2011-07-18 07:17:20 +08001040 Process HTTPS error responses.
1041
Senthil Kumaran0215d092011-07-18 07:12:40 +08001042 The behavior is same as :meth:`http_response`.
1043
1044
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001045.. _urllib-request-examples:
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001046
1047Examples
1048--------
1049
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001050This example gets the python.org main page and displays the first 300 bytes of
Georg Brandlbdc55ab2010-04-20 18:15:54 +00001051it. ::
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001052
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001053 >>> import urllib.request
1054 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.python.org/')
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001055 >>> print(f.read(300))
1056 b'<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
1057 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">\n\n\n<html
1058 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">\n\n<head>\n
1059 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />\n
1060 <title>Python Programming '
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001061
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001062Note that urlopen returns a bytes object. This is because there is no way
1063for urlopen to automatically determine the encoding of the byte stream
1064it receives from the http server. In general, a program will decode
1065the returned bytes object to string once it determines or guesses
1066the appropriate encoding.
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001067
Serhiy Storchakaa4d170d2013-12-23 18:20:51 +02001068The following W3C document, http://www.w3.org/International/O-charset\ , lists
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001069the various ways in which a (X)HTML or a XML document could have specified its
1070encoding information.
1071
Senthil Kumaran21c71ba2012-03-13 19:47:51 -07001072As the python.org website uses *utf-8* encoding as specified in it's meta tag, we
1073will use the same for decoding the bytes object. ::
1074
1075 >>> with urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.python.org/') as f:
1076 ... print(f.read(100).decode('utf-8'))
1077 ...
1078 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
1079 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtm
1080
1081It is also possible to achieve the same result without using the
1082:term:`context manager` approach. ::
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001083
1084 >>> import urllib.request
1085 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.python.org/')
Georg Brandlfe4fd832010-05-21 21:01:32 +00001086 >>> print(f.read(100).decode('utf-8'))
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001087 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
1088 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtm
1089
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001090In the following example, we are sending a data-stream to the stdin of a CGI
1091and reading the data it returns to us. Note that this example will only work
1092when the Python installation supports SSL. ::
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001093
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001094 >>> import urllib.request
1095 >>> req = urllib.request.Request(url='https://localhost/cgi-bin/test.cgi',
Senthil Kumaran29333122011-02-11 11:25:47 +00001096 ... data=b'This data is passed to stdin of the CGI')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001097 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen(req)
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001098 >>> print(f.read().decode('utf-8'))
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001099 Got Data: "This data is passed to stdin of the CGI"
1100
1101The code for the sample CGI used in the above example is::
1102
1103 #!/usr/bin/env python
1104 import sys
1105 data = sys.stdin.read()
Collin Winterc79461b2007-09-01 23:34:30 +00001106 print('Content-type: text-plain\n\nGot Data: "%s"' % data)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001107
Senthil Kumarane66cc812013-03-13 13:42:47 -07001108Here is an example of doing a ``PUT`` request using :class:`Request`::
1109
1110 import urllib.request
1111 DATA=b'some data'
1112 req = urllib.request.Request(url='http://localhost:8080', data=DATA,method='PUT')
1113 f = urllib.request.urlopen(req)
1114 print(f.status)
1115 print(f.reason)
1116
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001117Use of Basic HTTP Authentication::
1118
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001119 import urllib.request
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001120 # Create an OpenerDirector with support for Basic HTTP Authentication...
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001121 auth_handler = urllib.request.HTTPBasicAuthHandler()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001122 auth_handler.add_password(realm='PDQ Application',
1123 uri='https://mahler:8092/site-updates.py',
1124 user='klem',
1125 passwd='kadidd!ehopper')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001126 opener = urllib.request.build_opener(auth_handler)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001127 # ...and install it globally so it can be used with urlopen.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001128 urllib.request.install_opener(opener)
1129 urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.example.com/login.html')
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001130
1131:func:`build_opener` provides many handlers by default, including a
1132:class:`ProxyHandler`. By default, :class:`ProxyHandler` uses the environment
1133variables named ``<scheme>_proxy``, where ``<scheme>`` is the URL scheme
1134involved. For example, the :envvar:`http_proxy` environment variable is read to
1135obtain the HTTP proxy's URL.
1136
1137This example replaces the default :class:`ProxyHandler` with one that uses
Georg Brandl2ee470f2008-07-16 12:55:28 +00001138programmatically-supplied proxy URLs, and adds proxy authorization support with
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001139:class:`ProxyBasicAuthHandler`. ::
1140
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001141 proxy_handler = urllib.request.ProxyHandler({'http': 'http://www.example.com:3128/'})
Senthil Kumaran037f8362009-12-24 02:24:37 +00001142 proxy_auth_handler = urllib.request.ProxyBasicAuthHandler()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001143 proxy_auth_handler.add_password('realm', 'host', 'username', 'password')
1144
Senthil Kumaran037f8362009-12-24 02:24:37 +00001145 opener = urllib.request.build_opener(proxy_handler, proxy_auth_handler)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001146 # This time, rather than install the OpenerDirector, we use it directly:
1147 opener.open('http://www.example.com/login.html')
1148
1149Adding HTTP headers:
1150
1151Use the *headers* argument to the :class:`Request` constructor, or::
1152
Georg Brandl029986a2008-06-23 11:44:14 +00001153 import urllib.request
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001154 req = urllib.request.Request('http://www.example.com/')
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001155 req.add_header('Referer', 'http://www.python.org/')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001156 r = urllib.request.urlopen(req)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001157
1158:class:`OpenerDirector` automatically adds a :mailheader:`User-Agent` header to
1159every :class:`Request`. To change this::
1160
Georg Brandl029986a2008-06-23 11:44:14 +00001161 import urllib.request
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001162 opener = urllib.request.build_opener()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001163 opener.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0')]
1164 opener.open('http://www.example.com/')
1165
1166Also, remember that a few standard headers (:mailheader:`Content-Length`,
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -07001167:mailheader:`Content-Type` without charset parameter and :mailheader:`Host`)
1168are added when the :class:`Request` is passed to :func:`urlopen` (or
1169:meth:`OpenerDirector.open`).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001170
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001171.. _urllib-examples:
1172
1173Here is an example session that uses the ``GET`` method to retrieve a URL
1174containing parameters::
1175
1176 >>> import urllib.request
1177 >>> import urllib.parse
1178 >>> params = urllib.parse.urlencode({'spam': 1, 'eggs': 2, 'bacon': 0})
1179 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen("http://www.musi-cal.com/cgi-bin/query?%s" % params)
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001180 >>> print(f.read().decode('utf-8'))
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001181
Senthil Kumaran29333122011-02-11 11:25:47 +00001182The following example uses the ``POST`` method instead. Note that params output
1183from urlencode is encoded to bytes before it is sent to urlopen as data::
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001184
1185 >>> import urllib.request
1186 >>> import urllib.parse
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -07001187 >>> data = urllib.parse.urlencode({'spam': 1, 'eggs': 2, 'bacon': 0})
1188 >>> data = data.encode('utf-8')
1189 >>> request = urllib.request.Request("http://requestb.in/xrbl82xr")
1190 >>> # adding charset parameter to the Content-Type header.
1191 >>> request.add_header("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=utf-8")
1192 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen(request, data)
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001193 >>> print(f.read().decode('utf-8'))
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001194
1195The following example uses an explicitly specified HTTP proxy, overriding
1196environment settings::
1197
1198 >>> import urllib.request
1199 >>> proxies = {'http': 'http://proxy.example.com:8080/'}
1200 >>> opener = urllib.request.FancyURLopener(proxies)
1201 >>> f = opener.open("http://www.python.org")
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001202 >>> f.read().decode('utf-8')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001203
1204The following example uses no proxies at all, overriding environment settings::
1205
1206 >>> import urllib.request
1207 >>> opener = urllib.request.FancyURLopener({})
1208 >>> f = opener.open("http://www.python.org/")
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001209 >>> f.read().decode('utf-8')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001210
1211
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001212Legacy interface
1213----------------
1214
1215The following functions and classes are ported from the Python 2 module
1216``urllib`` (as opposed to ``urllib2``). They might become deprecated at
1217some point in the future.
1218
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001219.. function:: urlretrieve(url, filename=None, reporthook=None, data=None)
1220
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001221 Copy a network object denoted by a URL to a local file. If the URL
1222 points to a local file, the object will not be copied unless filename is supplied.
1223 Return a tuple ``(filename, headers)`` where *filename* is the
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001224 local file name under which the object can be found, and *headers* is whatever
1225 the :meth:`info` method of the object returned by :func:`urlopen` returned (for
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001226 a remote object). Exceptions are the same as for :func:`urlopen`.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001227
1228 The second argument, if present, specifies the file location to copy to (if
1229 absent, the location will be a tempfile with a generated name). The third
1230 argument, if present, is a hook function that will be called once on
1231 establishment of the network connection and once after each block read
1232 thereafter. The hook will be passed three arguments; a count of blocks
1233 transferred so far, a block size in bytes, and the total size of the file. The
1234 third argument may be ``-1`` on older FTP servers which do not return a file
1235 size in response to a retrieval request.
1236
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001237 The following example illustrates the most common usage scenario::
1238
1239 >>> import urllib.request
1240 >>> local_filename, headers = urllib.request.urlretrieve('http://python.org/')
1241 >>> html = open(local_filename)
1242 >>> html.close()
1243
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001244 If the *url* uses the :file:`http:` scheme identifier, the optional *data*
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001245 argument may be given to specify a ``POST`` request (normally the request
Senthil Kumaran87684e62012-03-14 18:08:13 -07001246 type is ``GET``). The *data* argument must be a bytes object in standard
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001247 :mimetype:`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` format; see the
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001248 :func:`urllib.parse.urlencode` function.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001249
1250 :func:`urlretrieve` will raise :exc:`ContentTooShortError` when it detects that
1251 the amount of data available was less than the expected amount (which is the
1252 size reported by a *Content-Length* header). This can occur, for example, when
1253 the download is interrupted.
1254
1255 The *Content-Length* is treated as a lower bound: if there's more data to read,
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001256 urlretrieve reads more data, but if less data is available, it raises the
1257 exception.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001258
1259 You can still retrieve the downloaded data in this case, it is stored in the
1260 :attr:`content` attribute of the exception instance.
1261
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001262 If no *Content-Length* header was supplied, urlretrieve can not check the size
1263 of the data it has downloaded, and just returns it. In this case you just have
1264 to assume that the download was successful.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001265
1266.. function:: urlcleanup()
1267
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001268 Cleans up temporary files that may have been left behind by previous
1269 calls to :func:`urlretrieve`.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001270
1271.. class:: URLopener(proxies=None, **x509)
1272
Senthil Kumaran6227c692013-03-18 17:09:50 -07001273 .. deprecated:: 3.3
1274
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001275 Base class for opening and reading URLs. Unless you need to support opening
1276 objects using schemes other than :file:`http:`, :file:`ftp:`, or :file:`file:`,
1277 you probably want to use :class:`FancyURLopener`.
1278
1279 By default, the :class:`URLopener` class sends a :mailheader:`User-Agent` header
1280 of ``urllib/VVV``, where *VVV* is the :mod:`urllib` version number.
1281 Applications can define their own :mailheader:`User-Agent` header by subclassing
1282 :class:`URLopener` or :class:`FancyURLopener` and setting the class attribute
1283 :attr:`version` to an appropriate string value in the subclass definition.
1284
1285 The optional *proxies* parameter should be a dictionary mapping scheme names to
1286 proxy URLs, where an empty dictionary turns proxies off completely. Its default
1287 value is ``None``, in which case environmental proxy settings will be used if
1288 present, as discussed in the definition of :func:`urlopen`, above.
1289
1290 Additional keyword parameters, collected in *x509*, may be used for
1291 authentication of the client when using the :file:`https:` scheme. The keywords
1292 *key_file* and *cert_file* are supported to provide an SSL key and certificate;
1293 both are needed to support client authentication.
1294
Antoine Pitrou4272d6a2011-10-12 19:10:10 +02001295 :class:`URLopener` objects will raise an :exc:`OSError` exception if the server
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001296 returns an error code.
1297
1298 .. method:: open(fullurl, data=None)
1299
1300 Open *fullurl* using the appropriate protocol. This method sets up cache and
1301 proxy information, then calls the appropriate open method with its input
1302 arguments. If the scheme is not recognized, :meth:`open_unknown` is called.
1303 The *data* argument has the same meaning as the *data* argument of
1304 :func:`urlopen`.
1305
1306
1307 .. method:: open_unknown(fullurl, data=None)
1308
1309 Overridable interface to open unknown URL types.
1310
1311
1312 .. method:: retrieve(url, filename=None, reporthook=None, data=None)
1313
1314 Retrieves the contents of *url* and places it in *filename*. The return value
1315 is a tuple consisting of a local filename and either a
1316 :class:`email.message.Message` object containing the response headers (for remote
1317 URLs) or ``None`` (for local URLs). The caller must then open and read the
1318 contents of *filename*. If *filename* is not given and the URL refers to a
1319 local file, the input filename is returned. If the URL is non-local and
1320 *filename* is not given, the filename is the output of :func:`tempfile.mktemp`
1321 with a suffix that matches the suffix of the last path component of the input
1322 URL. If *reporthook* is given, it must be a function accepting three numeric
Gregory P. Smith6b0bdab2012-11-10 13:43:44 -08001323 parameters: A chunk number, the maximum size chunks are read in and the total size of the download
1324 (-1 if unknown). It will be called once at the start and after each chunk of data is read from the
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001325 network. *reporthook* is ignored for local URLs.
1326
1327 If the *url* uses the :file:`http:` scheme identifier, the optional *data*
1328 argument may be given to specify a ``POST`` request (normally the request type
1329 is ``GET``). The *data* argument must in standard
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001330 :mimetype:`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` format; see the
1331 :func:`urllib.parse.urlencode` function.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001332
1333
1334 .. attribute:: version
1335
1336 Variable that specifies the user agent of the opener object. To get
1337 :mod:`urllib` to tell servers that it is a particular user agent, set this in a
1338 subclass as a class variable or in the constructor before calling the base
1339 constructor.
1340
1341
1342.. class:: FancyURLopener(...)
1343
Senthil Kumaran6227c692013-03-18 17:09:50 -07001344 .. deprecated:: 3.3
1345
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001346 :class:`FancyURLopener` subclasses :class:`URLopener` providing default handling
1347 for the following HTTP response codes: 301, 302, 303, 307 and 401. For the 30x
1348 response codes listed above, the :mailheader:`Location` header is used to fetch
1349 the actual URL. For 401 response codes (authentication required), basic HTTP
1350 authentication is performed. For the 30x response codes, recursion is bounded
1351 by the value of the *maxtries* attribute, which defaults to 10.
1352
1353 For all other response codes, the method :meth:`http_error_default` is called
1354 which you can override in subclasses to handle the error appropriately.
1355
1356 .. note::
1357
1358 According to the letter of :rfc:`2616`, 301 and 302 responses to POST requests
1359 must not be automatically redirected without confirmation by the user. In
1360 reality, browsers do allow automatic redirection of these responses, changing
1361 the POST to a GET, and :mod:`urllib` reproduces this behaviour.
1362
1363 The parameters to the constructor are the same as those for :class:`URLopener`.
1364
1365 .. note::
1366
1367 When performing basic authentication, a :class:`FancyURLopener` instance calls
1368 its :meth:`prompt_user_passwd` method. The default implementation asks the
1369 users for the required information on the controlling terminal. A subclass may
1370 override this method to support more appropriate behavior if needed.
1371
1372 The :class:`FancyURLopener` class offers one additional method that should be
1373 overloaded to provide the appropriate behavior:
1374
1375 .. method:: prompt_user_passwd(host, realm)
1376
1377 Return information needed to authenticate the user at the given host in the
1378 specified security realm. The return value should be a tuple, ``(user,
1379 password)``, which can be used for basic authentication.
1380
1381 The implementation prompts for this information on the terminal; an application
1382 should override this method to use an appropriate interaction model in the local
1383 environment.
1384
1385
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001386:mod:`urllib.request` Restrictions
1387----------------------------------
1388
1389 .. index::
1390 pair: HTTP; protocol
1391 pair: FTP; protocol
1392
Florent Xicluna83386da2011-10-28 22:03:55 +02001393* Currently, only the following protocols are supported: HTTP (versions 0.9 and
Antoine Pitroudf204be2012-11-24 17:59:08 +01001394 1.0), FTP, local files, and data URLs.
1395
1396 .. versionchanged:: 3.4 Added support for data URLs.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001397
Florent Xicluna305bb662011-10-28 22:14:41 +02001398* The caching feature of :func:`urlretrieve` has been disabled until someone
1399 finds the time to hack proper processing of Expiration time headers.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001400
1401* There should be a function to query whether a particular URL is in the cache.
1402
1403* For backward compatibility, if a URL appears to point to a local file but the
1404 file can't be opened, the URL is re-interpreted using the FTP protocol. This
1405 can sometimes cause confusing error messages.
1406
1407* The :func:`urlopen` and :func:`urlretrieve` functions can cause arbitrarily
1408 long delays while waiting for a network connection to be set up. This means
1409 that it is difficult to build an interactive Web client using these functions
1410 without using threads.
1411
1412 .. index::
1413 single: HTML
1414 pair: HTTP; protocol
1415
1416* The data returned by :func:`urlopen` or :func:`urlretrieve` is the raw data
1417 returned by the server. This may be binary data (such as an image), plain text
1418 or (for example) HTML. The HTTP protocol provides type information in the reply
1419 header, which can be inspected by looking at the :mailheader:`Content-Type`
1420 header. If the returned data is HTML, you can use the module
1421 :mod:`html.parser` to parse it.
1422
1423 .. index:: single: FTP
1424
1425* The code handling the FTP protocol cannot differentiate between a file and a
1426 directory. This can lead to unexpected behavior when attempting to read a URL
1427 that points to a file that is not accessible. If the URL ends in a ``/``, it is
1428 assumed to refer to a directory and will be handled accordingly. But if an
1429 attempt to read a file leads to a 550 error (meaning the URL cannot be found or
1430 is not accessible, often for permission reasons), then the path is treated as a
1431 directory in order to handle the case when a directory is specified by a URL but
1432 the trailing ``/`` has been left off. This can cause misleading results when
1433 you try to fetch a file whose read permissions make it inaccessible; the FTP
1434 code will try to read it, fail with a 550 error, and then perform a directory
1435 listing for the unreadable file. If fine-grained control is needed, consider
Éric Araujo09eb9802011-03-20 18:30:37 +01001436 using the :mod:`ftplib` module, subclassing :class:`FancyURLopener`, or changing
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001437 *_urlopener* to meet your needs.
1438
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001439
1440
Georg Brandl8175dae2010-11-29 14:53:15 +00001441:mod:`urllib.response` --- Response classes used by urllib
1442==========================================================
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001443
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001444.. module:: urllib.response
1445 :synopsis: Response classes used by urllib.
1446
1447The :mod:`urllib.response` module defines functions and classes which define a
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001448minimal file like interface, including ``read()`` and ``readline()``. The
Ezio Melottib9701422010-11-18 19:48:27 +00001449typical response object is an addinfourl instance, which defines an ``info()``
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001450method and that returns headers and a ``geturl()`` method that returns the url.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001451Functions defined by this module are used internally by the
1452:mod:`urllib.request` module.
1453