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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
Barry Warsawd4867072013-05-14 11:35:16 -040019.. function:: urlopen(url, data=None[, timeout], *, cafile=None, capath=None, cadefault=False)
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
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +000050 The optional *cafile* and *capath* parameters specify a set of trusted
51 CA certificates for HTTPS requests. *cafile* should point to a single
52 file containing a bundle of CA certificates, whereas *capath* should
53 point to a directory of hashed certificate files. More information can
54 be found in :meth:`ssl.SSLContext.load_verify_locations`.
55
Antoine Pitroude9ac6c2012-05-16 21:40:01 +020056 The *cadefault* parameter specifies whether to fall back to loading a
57 default certificate store defined by the underlying OpenSSL library if the
58 *cafile* and *capath* parameters are omitted. This will only work on
59 some non-Windows platforms.
60
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +000061 .. warning::
Serhiy Storchakafbc1c262013-11-29 12:17:13 +020062 If neither *cafile* nor *capath* is specified, and *cadefault* is ``False``,
Antoine Pitroude9ac6c2012-05-16 21:40:01 +020063 an HTTPS request will not do any verification of the server's
64 certificate.
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +000065
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080066 For http and https urls, this function returns a
67 :class:`http.client.HTTPResponse` object which has the following
68 :ref:`httpresponse-objects` methods.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000069
Senthil Kumarand03f4672013-02-07 21:43:21 -080070 For ftp, file, and data urls and requests explicity handled by legacy
71 :class:`URLopener` and :class:`FancyURLopener` classes, this function
72 returns a :class:`urllib.response.addinfourl` object which can work as
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080073 :term:`context manager` and has methods such as
74
75 * :meth:`~urllib.response.addinfourl.geturl` --- return the URL of the resource retrieved,
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +000076 commonly used to determine if a redirect was followed
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000077
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080078 * :meth:`~urllib.response.addinfourl.info` --- return the meta-information of the page, such as headers,
Senthil Kumaran13a7eb42010-06-28 17:31:40 +000079 in the form of an :func:`email.message_from_string` instance (see
80 `Quick Reference to HTTP Headers <http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/http.html>`_)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000081
Senthil Kumaranb98e96a2013-02-07 00:47:01 -080082 * :meth:`~urllib.response.addinfourl.getcode` -- return the HTTP status code of the response.
83
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +030084 Raises :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError` on errors.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +000085
Georg Brandl2dd01042009-02-27 16:46:46 +000086 Note that ``None`` may be returned if no handler handles the request (though
87 the default installed global :class:`OpenerDirector` uses
88 :class:`UnknownHandler` to ensure this never happens).
89
R David Murray5aea37a2013-04-28 11:07:16 -040090 In addition, if proxy settings are detected (for example, when a ``*_proxy``
91 environment variable like :envvar:`http_proxy` is set),
92 :class:`ProxyHandler` is default installed and makes sure the requests are
93 handled through the proxy.
Senthil Kumarana51a1b32009-10-18 01:42:33 +000094
Georg Brandl2dd01042009-02-27 16:46:46 +000095 The legacy ``urllib.urlopen`` function from Python 2.6 and earlier has been
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -070096 discontinued; :func:`urllib.request.urlopen` corresponds to the old
97 ``urllib2.urlopen``. Proxy handling, which was done by passing a dictionary
98 parameter to ``urllib.urlopen``, can be obtained by using
99 :class:`ProxyHandler` objects.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000100
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +0000101 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
102 *cafile* and *capath* were added.
103
Antoine Pitroud5323212010-10-22 18:19:07 +0000104 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
105 HTTPS virtual hosts are now supported if possible (that is, if
106 :data:`ssl.HAS_SNI` is true).
107
Senthil Kumaran7bc0d872010-12-19 10:49:52 +0000108 .. versionadded:: 3.2
109 *data* can be an iterable object.
110
Antoine Pitroude9ac6c2012-05-16 21:40:01 +0200111 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
112 *cadefault* was added.
113
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000114.. function:: install_opener(opener)
115
116 Install an :class:`OpenerDirector` instance as the default global opener.
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700117 Installing an opener is only necessary if you want urlopen to use that
118 opener; otherwise, simply call :meth:`OpenerDirector.open` instead of
119 :func:`~urllib.request.urlopen`. The code does not check for a real
120 :class:`OpenerDirector`, and any class with the appropriate interface will
121 work.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000122
123
124.. function:: build_opener([handler, ...])
125
126 Return an :class:`OpenerDirector` instance, which chains the handlers in the
127 order given. *handler*\s can be either instances of :class:`BaseHandler`, or
128 subclasses of :class:`BaseHandler` (in which case it must be possible to call
129 the constructor without any parameters). Instances of the following classes
130 will be in front of the *handler*\s, unless the *handler*\s contain them,
R David Murray5aea37a2013-04-28 11:07:16 -0400131 instances of them or subclasses of them: :class:`ProxyHandler` (if proxy
R David Murray9330a942013-04-28 11:24:35 -0400132 settings are detected), :class:`UnknownHandler`, :class:`HTTPHandler`,
133 :class:`HTTPDefaultErrorHandler`, :class:`HTTPRedirectHandler`,
134 :class:`FTPHandler`, :class:`FileHandler`, :class:`HTTPErrorProcessor`.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000135
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000136 If the Python installation has SSL support (i.e., if the :mod:`ssl` module
137 can be imported), :class:`HTTPSHandler` will also be added.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000138
Georg Brandle6bcc912008-05-12 18:05:20 +0000139 A :class:`BaseHandler` subclass may also change its :attr:`handler_order`
Senthil Kumarana6bac952011-07-04 11:28:30 -0700140 attribute to modify its position in the handlers list.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000141
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000142
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +0000143.. function:: pathname2url(path)
Christian Heimes292d3512008-02-03 16:51:08 +0000144
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +0000145 Convert the pathname *path* from the local syntax for a path to the form used in
146 the path component of a URL. This does not produce a complete URL. The return
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300147 value will already be quoted using the :func:`~urllib.parse.quote` function.
Christian Heimes292d3512008-02-03 16:51:08 +0000148
149
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +0000150.. function:: url2pathname(path)
151
Senthil Kumaranf0769e82010-08-09 19:53:52 +0000152 Convert the path component *path* from a percent-encoded URL to the local syntax for a
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300153 path. This does not accept a complete URL. This function uses
154 :func:`~urllib.parse.unquote` to decode *path*.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000155
Senthil Kumaran7e557a62010-02-26 00:53:23 +0000156.. function:: getproxies()
157
158 This helper function returns a dictionary of scheme to proxy server URL
Senthil Kumaran19d85c22012-01-11 01:29:08 +0800159 mappings. It scans the environment for variables named ``<scheme>_proxy``,
160 in a case insensitive approach, for all operating systems first, and when it
161 cannot find it, looks for proxy information from Mac OSX System
162 Configuration for Mac OS X and Windows Systems Registry for Windows.
Senthil Kumaran7e557a62010-02-26 00:53:23 +0000163
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000164
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000165The following classes are provided:
166
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800167.. class:: Request(url, data=None, headers={}, origin_req_host=None, unverifiable=False, method=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000168
169 This class is an abstraction of a URL request.
170
171 *url* should be a string containing a valid URL.
172
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700173 *data* must be a bytes object specifying additional data to send to the
Senthil Kumaran87684e62012-03-14 18:08:13 -0700174 server, or ``None`` if no such data is needed. Currently HTTP requests are
175 the only ones that use *data*; the HTTP request will be a POST instead of a
176 GET when the *data* parameter is provided. *data* should be a buffer in the
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700177 standard :mimetype:`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` format.
178
179 The :func:`urllib.parse.urlencode` function takes a mapping or sequence of
180 2-tuples and returns a string in this format. It should be encoded to bytes
181 before being used as the *data* parameter. The charset parameter in
182 ``Content-Type`` header may be used to specify the encoding. If charset
183 parameter is not sent with the Content-Type header, the server following the
184 HTTP 1.1 recommendation may assume that the data is encoded in ISO-8859-1
185 encoding. It is advisable to use charset parameter with encoding used in
186 ``Content-Type`` header with the :class:`Request`.
187
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000188
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000189 *headers* should be a dictionary, and will be treated as if
190 :meth:`add_header` was called with each key and value as arguments.
191 This is often used to "spoof" the ``User-Agent`` header, which is
192 used by a browser to identify itself -- some HTTP servers only
193 allow requests coming from common browsers as opposed to scripts.
194 For example, Mozilla Firefox may identify itself as ``"Mozilla/5.0
195 (X11; U; Linux i686) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11"``, while
196 :mod:`urllib`'s default user agent string is
197 ``"Python-urllib/2.6"`` (on Python 2.6).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000198
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -0700199 An example of using ``Content-Type`` header with *data* argument would be
200 sending a dictionary like ``{"Content-Type":" application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=utf-8"}``
201
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000202 The final two arguments are only of interest for correct handling
203 of third-party HTTP cookies:
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000204
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000205 *origin_req_host* should be the request-host of the origin
206 transaction, as defined by :rfc:`2965`. It defaults to
207 ``http.cookiejar.request_host(self)``. This is the host name or IP
208 address of the original request that was initiated by the user.
209 For example, if the request is for an image in an HTML document,
210 this should be the request-host of the request for the page
Georg Brandl24420152008-05-26 16:32:26 +0000211 containing the image.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000212
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000213 *unverifiable* should indicate whether the request is unverifiable,
Serhiy Storchakafbc1c262013-11-29 12:17:13 +0200214 as defined by RFC 2965. It defaults to ``False``. An unverifiable
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000215 request is one whose URL the user did not have the option to
216 approve. For example, if the request is for an image in an HTML
217 document, and the user had no option to approve the automatic
218 fetching of the image, this should be true.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000219
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800220 *method* should be a string that indicates the HTTP request method that
221 will be used (e.g. ``'HEAD'``). Its value is stored in the
Senthil Kumarana41c9422011-10-20 02:37:08 +0800222 :attr:`~Request.method` attribute and is used by :meth:`get_method()`.
Jason R. Coombs0c47f342013-09-22 09:33:45 -0400223 Subclasses may indicate a default method by setting the
224 :attr:`~Request.method` attribute in the class itself.
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800225
226 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
Georg Brandl61063cc2012-06-24 22:48:30 +0200227 :attr:`Request.method` argument is added to the Request class.
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800228
Jason R. Coombs0c47f342013-09-22 09:33:45 -0400229 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
230 Default :attr:`Request.method` may be indicated at the class level.
231
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000232
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000233.. class:: OpenerDirector()
234
235 The :class:`OpenerDirector` class opens URLs via :class:`BaseHandler`\ s chained
236 together. It manages the chaining of handlers, and recovery from errors.
237
238
239.. class:: BaseHandler()
240
241 This is the base class for all registered handlers --- and handles only the
242 simple mechanics of registration.
243
244
245.. class:: HTTPDefaultErrorHandler()
246
247 A class which defines a default handler for HTTP error responses; all responses
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300248 are turned into :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` exceptions.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000249
250
251.. class:: HTTPRedirectHandler()
252
253 A class to handle redirections.
254
255
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000256.. class:: HTTPCookieProcessor(cookiejar=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000257
258 A class to handle HTTP Cookies.
259
260
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000261.. class:: ProxyHandler(proxies=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000262
263 Cause requests to go through a proxy. If *proxies* is given, it must be a
R David Murray9330a942013-04-28 11:24:35 -0400264 dictionary mapping protocol names to URLs of proxies. The default is to read
265 the list of proxies from the environment variables
266 :envvar:`<protocol>_proxy`. If no proxy environment variables are set, then
267 in a Windows environment proxy settings are obtained from the registry's
268 Internet Settings section, and in a Mac OS X environment proxy information
269 is retrieved from the OS X System Configuration Framework.
Senthil Kumarana51a1b32009-10-18 01:42:33 +0000270
Christian Heimese25f35e2008-03-20 10:49:03 +0000271 To disable autodetected proxy pass an empty dictionary.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000272
273
274.. class:: HTTPPasswordMgr()
275
276 Keep a database of ``(realm, uri) -> (user, password)`` mappings.
277
278
279.. class:: HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm()
280
281 Keep a database of ``(realm, uri) -> (user, password)`` mappings. A realm of
282 ``None`` is considered a catch-all realm, which is searched if no other realm
283 fits.
284
285
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000286.. class:: AbstractBasicAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000287
288 This is a mixin class that helps with HTTP authentication, both to the remote
289 host and to a proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be something that is
290 compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
291 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
292 supported.
293
294
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000295.. class:: HTTPBasicAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000296
Senthil Kumaran4de00a22011-05-11 21:17:57 +0800297 Handle authentication with the remote host. *password_mgr*, if given, should
298 be something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to
299 section :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must
300 be supported. HTTPBasicAuthHandler will raise a :exc:`ValueError` when
301 presented with a wrong Authentication scheme.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000302
303
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000304.. class:: ProxyBasicAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000305
306 Handle authentication with the proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be
307 something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
308 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
309 supported.
310
311
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000312.. class:: AbstractDigestAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000313
314 This is a mixin class that helps with HTTP authentication, both to the remote
315 host and to a proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be something that is
316 compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
317 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
318 supported.
319
320
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000321.. class:: HTTPDigestAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000322
Senthil Kumaran4de00a22011-05-11 21:17:57 +0800323 Handle authentication with the remote host. *password_mgr*, if given, should
324 be something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to
325 section :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must
326 be supported. When both Digest Authentication Handler and Basic
327 Authentication Handler are both added, Digest Authentication is always tried
328 first. If the Digest Authentication returns a 40x response again, it is sent
329 to Basic Authentication handler to Handle. This Handler method will raise a
330 :exc:`ValueError` when presented with an authentication scheme other than
331 Digest or Basic.
332
Ezio Melottie9c7d6c2011-05-12 01:10:57 +0300333 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
334 Raise :exc:`ValueError` on unsupported Authentication Scheme.
Senthil Kumaran4de00a22011-05-11 21:17:57 +0800335
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000336
337
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000338.. class:: ProxyDigestAuthHandler(password_mgr=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000339
340 Handle authentication with the proxy. *password_mgr*, if given, should be
341 something that is compatible with :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr`; refer to section
342 :ref:`http-password-mgr` for information on the interface that must be
343 supported.
344
345
346.. class:: HTTPHandler()
347
348 A class to handle opening of HTTP URLs.
349
350
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +0000351.. class:: HTTPSHandler(debuglevel=0, context=None, check_hostname=None)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000352
Antoine Pitrou803e6d62010-10-13 10:36:15 +0000353 A class to handle opening of HTTPS URLs. *context* and *check_hostname*
354 have the same meaning as in :class:`http.client.HTTPSConnection`.
355
356 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
357 *context* and *check_hostname* were added.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000358
359
360.. class:: FileHandler()
361
362 Open local files.
363
Antoine Pitroudf204be2012-11-24 17:59:08 +0100364.. class:: DataHandler()
365
366 Open data URLs.
367
368 .. versionadded:: 3.4
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000369
370.. class:: FTPHandler()
371
372 Open FTP URLs.
373
374
375.. class:: CacheFTPHandler()
376
377 Open FTP URLs, keeping a cache of open FTP connections to minimize delays.
378
379
380.. class:: UnknownHandler()
381
382 A catch-all class to handle unknown URLs.
383
384
Senthil Kumaraned270fa2011-07-18 06:42:46 +0800385.. class:: HTTPErrorProcessor()
386
387 Process HTTP error responses.
388
389
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000390.. _request-objects:
391
392Request Objects
393---------------
394
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000395The following methods describe :class:`Request`'s public interface,
396and so all may be overridden in subclasses. It also defines several
397public attributes that can be used by clients to inspect the parsed
398request.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000399
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000400.. attribute:: Request.full_url
401
402 The original URL passed to the constructor.
403
Senthil Kumaran83070752013-05-24 09:14:12 -0700404 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
405
406 Request.full_url is a property with setter, getter and a deleter. Getting
407 :attr:`~Request.full_url` returns the original request URL with the
408 fragment, if it was present.
409
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000410.. attribute:: Request.type
411
412 The URI scheme.
413
414.. attribute:: Request.host
415
416 The URI authority, typically a host, but may also contain a port
417 separated by a colon.
418
419.. attribute:: Request.origin_req_host
420
421 The original host for the request, without port.
422
423.. attribute:: Request.selector
424
425 The URI path. If the :class:`Request` uses a proxy, then selector
426 will be the full url that is passed to the proxy.
427
428.. attribute:: Request.data
429
430 The entity body for the request, or None if not specified.
431
Andrew Svetlovbff98fe2012-11-27 23:06:19 +0200432 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
433 Changing value of :attr:`Request.data` now deletes "Content-Length"
434 header if it was previously set or calculated.
435
Jeremy Hyltone2573162009-03-31 14:38:13 +0000436.. attribute:: Request.unverifiable
437
438 boolean, indicates whether the request is unverifiable as defined
439 by RFC 2965.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000440
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800441.. attribute:: Request.method
442
443 The HTTP request method to use. This value is used by
Senthil Kumarana41c9422011-10-20 02:37:08 +0800444 :meth:`~Request.get_method` to override the computed HTTP request
445 method that would otherwise be returned. This attribute is initialized with
446 the value of the *method* argument passed to the constructor.
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800447
Senthil Kumarana41c9422011-10-20 02:37:08 +0800448 .. versionadded:: 3.3
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800449
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000450
451.. method:: Request.get_method()
452
Senthil Kumarande49d642011-10-16 23:54:44 +0800453 Return a string indicating the HTTP request method. If
454 :attr:`Request.method` is not ``None``, return its value, otherwise return
455 ``'GET'`` if :attr:`Request.data` is ``None``, or ``'POST'`` if it's not.
456 This is only meaningful for HTTP requests.
457
Florent Xicluna95483b62011-10-19 11:44:51 +0200458 .. versionchanged:: 3.3
Senthil Kumarana41c9422011-10-20 02:37:08 +0800459 get_method now looks at the value of :attr:`Request.method`.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000460
461
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000462.. method:: Request.add_header(key, val)
463
464 Add another header to the request. Headers are currently ignored by all
465 handlers except HTTP handlers, where they are added to the list of headers sent
466 to the server. Note that there cannot be more than one header with the same
467 name, and later calls will overwrite previous calls in case the *key* collides.
468 Currently, this is no loss of HTTP functionality, since all headers which have
469 meaning when used more than once have a (header-specific) way of gaining the
470 same functionality using only one header.
471
472
473.. method:: Request.add_unredirected_header(key, header)
474
475 Add a header that will not be added to a redirected request.
476
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000477
478.. method:: Request.has_header(header)
479
480 Return whether the instance has the named header (checks both regular and
481 unredirected).
482
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000483
Andrew Svetlovbff98fe2012-11-27 23:06:19 +0200484.. method:: Request.remove_header(header)
485
486 Remove named header from the request instance (both from regular and
487 unredirected headers).
488
Georg Brandlc0fc9582012-12-22 10:36:45 +0100489 .. versionadded:: 3.4
490
Andrew Svetlovbff98fe2012-11-27 23:06:19 +0200491
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000492.. method:: Request.get_full_url()
493
494 Return the URL given in the constructor.
495
Senthil Kumaran83070752013-05-24 09:14:12 -0700496 .. versionchanged:: 3.4
497
498 Returns :attr:`Request.full_url`
499
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000500
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000501.. method:: Request.set_proxy(host, type)
502
503 Prepare the request by connecting to a proxy server. The *host* and *type* will
504 replace those of the instance, and the instance's selector will be the original
505 URL given in the constructor.
506
507
Senthil Kumaran8dc50042012-04-29 11:50:39 +0800508.. method:: Request.get_header(header_name, default=None)
509
510 Return the value of the given header. If the header is not present, return
511 the default value.
512
513
514.. method:: Request.header_items()
515
516 Return a list of tuples (header_name, header_value) of the Request headers.
517
Senthil Kumaran6ddec172013-03-19 18:03:39 -0700518.. versionchanged:: 3.4
519 Request methods add_data, has_data, get_data, get_type, get_host,
520 get_selector, get_origin_req_host and is_unverifiable deprecated since 3.3
521 have been removed.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000522
523.. _opener-director-objects:
524
525OpenerDirector Objects
526----------------------
527
528:class:`OpenerDirector` instances have the following methods:
529
530
531.. method:: OpenerDirector.add_handler(handler)
532
533 *handler* should be an instance of :class:`BaseHandler`. The following methods
534 are searched, and added to the possible chains (note that HTTP errors are a
535 special case).
536
537 * :meth:`protocol_open` --- signal that the handler knows how to open *protocol*
538 URLs.
539
540 * :meth:`http_error_type` --- signal that the handler knows how to handle HTTP
541 errors with HTTP error code *type*.
542
543 * :meth:`protocol_error` --- signal that the handler knows how to handle errors
544 from (non-\ ``http``) *protocol*.
545
546 * :meth:`protocol_request` --- signal that the handler knows how to pre-process
547 *protocol* requests.
548
549 * :meth:`protocol_response` --- signal that the handler knows how to
550 post-process *protocol* responses.
551
552
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000553.. method:: OpenerDirector.open(url, data=None[, timeout])
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000554
555 Open the given *url* (which can be a request object or a string), optionally
Alexandre Vassalotti5f8ced22008-05-16 00:03:33 +0000556 passing the given *data*. Arguments, return values and exceptions raised are
557 the same as those of :func:`urlopen` (which simply calls the :meth:`open`
558 method on the currently installed global :class:`OpenerDirector`). The
559 optional *timeout* parameter specifies a timeout in seconds for blocking
Georg Brandlf78e02b2008-06-10 17:40:04 +0000560 operations like the connection attempt (if not specified, the global default
Georg Brandl325524e2010-05-21 20:57:33 +0000561 timeout setting will be used). The timeout feature actually works only for
Senthil Kumaranc08d9072010-10-05 18:46:56 +0000562 HTTP, HTTPS and FTP connections).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000563
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000564
Georg Brandl7f01a132009-09-16 15:58:14 +0000565.. method:: OpenerDirector.error(proto, *args)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000566
567 Handle an error of the given protocol. This will call the registered error
568 handlers for the given protocol with the given arguments (which are protocol
569 specific). The HTTP protocol is a special case which uses the HTTP response
570 code to determine the specific error handler; refer to the :meth:`http_error_\*`
571 methods of the handler classes.
572
573 Return values and exceptions raised are the same as those of :func:`urlopen`.
574
575OpenerDirector objects open URLs in three stages:
576
577The order in which these methods are called within each stage is determined by
578sorting the handler instances.
579
580#. Every handler with a method named like :meth:`protocol_request` has that
581 method called to pre-process the request.
582
583#. Handlers with a method named like :meth:`protocol_open` are called to handle
584 the request. This stage ends when a handler either returns a non-\ :const:`None`
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300585 value (ie. a response), or raises an exception (usually
586 :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError`). Exceptions are allowed to propagate.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000587
588 In fact, the above algorithm is first tried for methods named
589 :meth:`default_open`. If all such methods return :const:`None`, the algorithm
590 is repeated for methods named like :meth:`protocol_open`. If all such methods
591 return :const:`None`, the algorithm is repeated for methods named
592 :meth:`unknown_open`.
593
594 Note that the implementation of these methods may involve calls of the parent
Georg Brandla5eacee2010-07-23 16:55:26 +0000595 :class:`OpenerDirector` instance's :meth:`~OpenerDirector.open` and
596 :meth:`~OpenerDirector.error` methods.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000597
598#. Every handler with a method named like :meth:`protocol_response` has that
599 method called to post-process the response.
600
601
602.. _base-handler-objects:
603
604BaseHandler Objects
605-------------------
606
607:class:`BaseHandler` objects provide a couple of methods that are directly
608useful, and others that are meant to be used by derived classes. These are
609intended for direct use:
610
611
612.. method:: BaseHandler.add_parent(director)
613
614 Add a director as parent.
615
616
617.. method:: BaseHandler.close()
618
619 Remove any parents.
620
Senthil Kumarana6bac952011-07-04 11:28:30 -0700621The following attribute and methods should only be used by classes derived from
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000622:class:`BaseHandler`.
623
624.. note::
625
626 The convention has been adopted that subclasses defining
627 :meth:`protocol_request` or :meth:`protocol_response` methods are named
628 :class:`\*Processor`; all others are named :class:`\*Handler`.
629
630
631.. attribute:: BaseHandler.parent
632
633 A valid :class:`OpenerDirector`, which can be used to open using a different
634 protocol, or handle errors.
635
636
637.. method:: BaseHandler.default_open(req)
638
639 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
640 define it if they want to catch all URLs.
641
642 This method, if implemented, will be called by the parent
643 :class:`OpenerDirector`. It should return a file-like object as described in
644 the return value of the :meth:`open` of :class:`OpenerDirector`, or ``None``.
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300645 It should raise :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError`, unless a truly exceptional
646 thing happens (for example, :exc:`MemoryError` should not be mapped to
647 :exc:`URLError`).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000648
649 This method will be called before any protocol-specific open method.
650
651
652.. method:: BaseHandler.protocol_open(req)
653 :noindex:
654
655 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
656 define it if they want to handle URLs with the given protocol.
657
658 This method, if defined, will be called by the parent :class:`OpenerDirector`.
659 Return values should be the same as for :meth:`default_open`.
660
661
662.. method:: BaseHandler.unknown_open(req)
663
664 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
665 define it if they want to catch all URLs with no specific registered handler to
666 open it.
667
668 This method, if implemented, will be called by the :attr:`parent`
669 :class:`OpenerDirector`. Return values should be the same as for
670 :meth:`default_open`.
671
672
673.. method:: BaseHandler.http_error_default(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
674
675 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
676 override it if they intend to provide a catch-all for otherwise unhandled HTTP
677 errors. It will be called automatically by the :class:`OpenerDirector` getting
678 the error, and should not normally be called in other circumstances.
679
680 *req* will be a :class:`Request` object, *fp* will be a file-like object with
681 the HTTP error body, *code* will be the three-digit code of the error, *msg*
682 will be the user-visible explanation of the code and *hdrs* will be a mapping
683 object with the headers of the error.
684
685 Return values and exceptions raised should be the same as those of
686 :func:`urlopen`.
687
688
689.. method:: BaseHandler.http_error_nnn(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
690
691 *nnn* should be a three-digit HTTP error code. This method is also not defined
692 in :class:`BaseHandler`, but will be called, if it exists, on an instance of a
693 subclass, when an HTTP error with code *nnn* occurs.
694
695 Subclasses should override this method to handle specific HTTP errors.
696
697 Arguments, return values and exceptions raised should be the same as for
698 :meth:`http_error_default`.
699
700
701.. method:: BaseHandler.protocol_request(req)
702 :noindex:
703
704 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
705 define it if they want to pre-process requests of the given protocol.
706
707 This method, if defined, will be called by the parent :class:`OpenerDirector`.
708 *req* will be a :class:`Request` object. The return value should be a
709 :class:`Request` object.
710
711
712.. method:: BaseHandler.protocol_response(req, response)
713 :noindex:
714
715 This method is *not* defined in :class:`BaseHandler`, but subclasses should
716 define it if they want to post-process responses of the given protocol.
717
718 This method, if defined, will be called by the parent :class:`OpenerDirector`.
719 *req* will be a :class:`Request` object. *response* will be an object
720 implementing the same interface as the return value of :func:`urlopen`. The
721 return value should implement the same interface as the return value of
722 :func:`urlopen`.
723
724
725.. _http-redirect-handler:
726
727HTTPRedirectHandler Objects
728---------------------------
729
730.. note::
731
732 Some HTTP redirections require action from this module's client code. If this
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300733 is the case, :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` is raised. See :rfc:`2616` for
734 details of the precise meanings of the various redirection codes.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000735
guido@google.coma119df92011-03-29 11:41:02 -0700736 An :class:`HTTPError` exception raised as a security consideration if the
737 HTTPRedirectHandler is presented with a redirected url which is not an HTTP,
738 HTTPS or FTP url.
739
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000740
Georg Brandl9617a592009-02-13 10:40:43 +0000741.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.redirect_request(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs, newurl)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000742
743 Return a :class:`Request` or ``None`` in response to a redirect. This is called
744 by the default implementations of the :meth:`http_error_30\*` methods when a
745 redirection is received from the server. If a redirection should take place,
746 return a new :class:`Request` to allow :meth:`http_error_30\*` to perform the
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300747 redirect to *newurl*. Otherwise, raise :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` if
748 no other handler should try to handle this URL, or return ``None`` if you
749 can't but another handler might.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000750
751 .. note::
752
753 The default implementation of this method does not strictly follow :rfc:`2616`,
754 which says that 301 and 302 responses to ``POST`` requests must not be
755 automatically redirected without confirmation by the user. In reality, browsers
756 do allow automatic redirection of these responses, changing the POST to a
757 ``GET``, and the default implementation reproduces this behavior.
758
759
760.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_301(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
761
Georg Brandl9617a592009-02-13 10:40:43 +0000762 Redirect to the ``Location:`` or ``URI:`` URL. This method is called by the
763 parent :class:`OpenerDirector` when getting an HTTP 'moved permanently' response.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000764
765
766.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_302(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
767
768 The same as :meth:`http_error_301`, but called for the 'found' response.
769
770
771.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_303(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
772
773 The same as :meth:`http_error_301`, but called for the 'see other' response.
774
775
776.. method:: HTTPRedirectHandler.http_error_307(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
777
778 The same as :meth:`http_error_301`, but called for the 'temporary redirect'
779 response.
780
781
782.. _http-cookie-processor:
783
784HTTPCookieProcessor Objects
785---------------------------
786
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000787:class:`HTTPCookieProcessor` instances have one attribute:
788
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000789.. attribute:: HTTPCookieProcessor.cookiejar
790
Georg Brandl24420152008-05-26 16:32:26 +0000791 The :class:`http.cookiejar.CookieJar` in which cookies are stored.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000792
793
794.. _proxy-handler:
795
796ProxyHandler Objects
797--------------------
798
799
800.. method:: ProxyHandler.protocol_open(request)
801 :noindex:
802
803 The :class:`ProxyHandler` will have a method :meth:`protocol_open` for every
804 *protocol* which has a proxy in the *proxies* dictionary given in the
805 constructor. The method will modify requests to go through the proxy, by
806 calling ``request.set_proxy()``, and call the next handler in the chain to
807 actually execute the protocol.
808
809
810.. _http-password-mgr:
811
812HTTPPasswordMgr Objects
813-----------------------
814
815These methods are available on :class:`HTTPPasswordMgr` and
816:class:`HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm` objects.
817
818
819.. method:: HTTPPasswordMgr.add_password(realm, uri, user, passwd)
820
821 *uri* can be either a single URI, or a sequence of URIs. *realm*, *user* and
822 *passwd* must be strings. This causes ``(user, passwd)`` to be used as
823 authentication tokens when authentication for *realm* and a super-URI of any of
824 the given URIs is given.
825
826
827.. method:: HTTPPasswordMgr.find_user_password(realm, authuri)
828
829 Get user/password for given realm and URI, if any. This method will return
830 ``(None, None)`` if there is no matching user/password.
831
832 For :class:`HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm` objects, the realm ``None`` will be
833 searched if the given *realm* has no matching user/password.
834
835
836.. _abstract-basic-auth-handler:
837
838AbstractBasicAuthHandler Objects
839--------------------------------
840
841
842.. method:: AbstractBasicAuthHandler.http_error_auth_reqed(authreq, host, req, headers)
843
844 Handle an authentication request by getting a user/password pair, and re-trying
845 the request. *authreq* should be the name of the header where the information
846 about the realm is included in the request, *host* specifies the URL and path to
847 authenticate for, *req* should be the (failed) :class:`Request` object, and
848 *headers* should be the error headers.
849
850 *host* is either an authority (e.g. ``"python.org"``) or a URL containing an
851 authority component (e.g. ``"http://python.org/"``). In either case, the
852 authority must not contain a userinfo component (so, ``"python.org"`` and
853 ``"python.org:80"`` are fine, ``"joe:password@python.org"`` is not).
854
855
856.. _http-basic-auth-handler:
857
858HTTPBasicAuthHandler Objects
859----------------------------
860
861
862.. method:: HTTPBasicAuthHandler.http_error_401(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
863
864 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
865
866
867.. _proxy-basic-auth-handler:
868
869ProxyBasicAuthHandler Objects
870-----------------------------
871
872
873.. method:: ProxyBasicAuthHandler.http_error_407(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
874
875 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
876
877
878.. _abstract-digest-auth-handler:
879
880AbstractDigestAuthHandler Objects
881---------------------------------
882
883
884.. method:: AbstractDigestAuthHandler.http_error_auth_reqed(authreq, host, req, headers)
885
886 *authreq* should be the name of the header where the information about the realm
887 is included in the request, *host* should be the host to authenticate to, *req*
888 should be the (failed) :class:`Request` object, and *headers* should be the
889 error headers.
890
891
892.. _http-digest-auth-handler:
893
894HTTPDigestAuthHandler Objects
895-----------------------------
896
897
898.. method:: HTTPDigestAuthHandler.http_error_401(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
899
900 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
901
902
903.. _proxy-digest-auth-handler:
904
905ProxyDigestAuthHandler Objects
906------------------------------
907
908
909.. method:: ProxyDigestAuthHandler.http_error_407(req, fp, code, msg, hdrs)
910
911 Retry the request with authentication information, if available.
912
913
914.. _http-handler-objects:
915
916HTTPHandler Objects
917-------------------
918
919
920.. method:: HTTPHandler.http_open(req)
921
922 Send an HTTP request, which can be either GET or POST, depending on
923 ``req.has_data()``.
924
925
926.. _https-handler-objects:
927
928HTTPSHandler Objects
929--------------------
930
931
932.. method:: HTTPSHandler.https_open(req)
933
934 Send an HTTPS request, which can be either GET or POST, depending on
935 ``req.has_data()``.
936
937
938.. _file-handler-objects:
939
940FileHandler Objects
941-------------------
942
943
944.. method:: FileHandler.file_open(req)
945
946 Open the file locally, if there is no host name, or the host name is
Senthil Kumaran383c32d2010-10-14 11:57:35 +0000947 ``'localhost'``.
948
Georg Brandl61063cc2012-06-24 22:48:30 +0200949 .. versionchanged:: 3.2
950 This method is applicable only for local hostnames. When a remote
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +0300951 hostname is given, an :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError` is raised.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000952
953
Antoine Pitroudf204be2012-11-24 17:59:08 +0100954.. _data-handler-objects:
955
956DataHandler Objects
957-------------------
958
959.. method:: DataHandler.data_open(req)
960
961 Read a data URL. This kind of URL contains the content encoded in the URL
962 itself. The data URL syntax is specified in :rfc:`2397`. This implementation
963 ignores white spaces in base64 encoded data URLs so the URL may be wrapped
964 in whatever source file it comes from. But even though some browsers don't
965 mind about a missing padding at the end of a base64 encoded data URL, this
966 implementation will raise an :exc:`ValueError` in that case.
967
968
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +0000969.. _ftp-handler-objects:
970
971FTPHandler Objects
972------------------
973
974
975.. method:: FTPHandler.ftp_open(req)
976
977 Open the FTP file indicated by *req*. The login is always done with empty
978 username and password.
979
980
981.. _cacheftp-handler-objects:
982
983CacheFTPHandler Objects
984-----------------------
985
986:class:`CacheFTPHandler` objects are :class:`FTPHandler` objects with the
987following additional methods:
988
989
990.. method:: CacheFTPHandler.setTimeout(t)
991
992 Set timeout of connections to *t* seconds.
993
994
995.. method:: CacheFTPHandler.setMaxConns(m)
996
997 Set maximum number of cached connections to *m*.
998
999
1000.. _unknown-handler-objects:
1001
1002UnknownHandler Objects
1003----------------------
1004
1005
1006.. method:: UnknownHandler.unknown_open()
1007
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001008 Raise a :exc:`~urllib.error.URLError` exception.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001009
1010
1011.. _http-error-processor-objects:
1012
1013HTTPErrorProcessor Objects
1014--------------------------
1015
Senthil Kumaran0215d092011-07-18 07:12:40 +08001016.. method:: HTTPErrorProcessor.http_response()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001017
1018 Process HTTP error responses.
1019
1020 For 200 error codes, the response object is returned immediately.
1021
1022 For non-200 error codes, this simply passes the job on to the
1023 :meth:`protocol_error_code` handler methods, via :meth:`OpenerDirector.error`.
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001024 Eventually, :class:`HTTPDefaultErrorHandler` will raise an
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001025 :exc:`~urllib.error.HTTPError` if no other handler handles the error.
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001026
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001027
Senthil Kumaran0215d092011-07-18 07:12:40 +08001028.. method:: HTTPErrorProcessor.https_response()
1029
Senthil Kumaran3e7f33f2011-07-18 07:17:20 +08001030 Process HTTPS error responses.
1031
Senthil Kumaran0215d092011-07-18 07:12:40 +08001032 The behavior is same as :meth:`http_response`.
1033
1034
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001035.. _urllib-request-examples:
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001036
1037Examples
1038--------
1039
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001040This example gets the python.org main page and displays the first 300 bytes of
Georg Brandlbdc55ab2010-04-20 18:15:54 +00001041it. ::
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001042
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001043 >>> import urllib.request
1044 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.python.org/')
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001045 >>> print(f.read(300))
1046 b'<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
1047 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">\n\n\n<html
1048 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">\n\n<head>\n
1049 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />\n
1050 <title>Python Programming '
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001051
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001052Note that urlopen returns a bytes object. This is because there is no way
1053for urlopen to automatically determine the encoding of the byte stream
1054it receives from the http server. In general, a program will decode
1055the returned bytes object to string once it determines or guesses
1056the appropriate encoding.
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001057
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001058The following W3C document, http://www.w3.org/International/O-charset , lists
1059the various ways in which a (X)HTML or a XML document could have specified its
1060encoding information.
1061
Senthil Kumaran21c71ba2012-03-13 19:47:51 -07001062As the python.org website uses *utf-8* encoding as specified in it's meta tag, we
1063will use the same for decoding the bytes object. ::
1064
1065 >>> with urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.python.org/') as f:
1066 ... print(f.read(100).decode('utf-8'))
1067 ...
1068 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
1069 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtm
1070
1071It is also possible to achieve the same result without using the
1072:term:`context manager` approach. ::
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001073
1074 >>> import urllib.request
1075 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.python.org/')
Georg Brandlfe4fd832010-05-21 21:01:32 +00001076 >>> print(f.read(100).decode('utf-8'))
Senthil Kumaran0c2d8b82010-04-22 10:53:30 +00001077 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
1078 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtm
1079
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001080In the following example, we are sending a data-stream to the stdin of a CGI
1081and reading the data it returns to us. Note that this example will only work
1082when the Python installation supports SSL. ::
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001083
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001084 >>> import urllib.request
1085 >>> req = urllib.request.Request(url='https://localhost/cgi-bin/test.cgi',
Senthil Kumaran29333122011-02-11 11:25:47 +00001086 ... data=b'This data is passed to stdin of the CGI')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001087 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen(req)
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001088 >>> print(f.read().decode('utf-8'))
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001089 Got Data: "This data is passed to stdin of the CGI"
1090
1091The code for the sample CGI used in the above example is::
1092
1093 #!/usr/bin/env python
1094 import sys
1095 data = sys.stdin.read()
Collin Winterc79461b2007-09-01 23:34:30 +00001096 print('Content-type: text-plain\n\nGot Data: "%s"' % data)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001097
Senthil Kumarane66cc812013-03-13 13:42:47 -07001098Here is an example of doing a ``PUT`` request using :class:`Request`::
1099
1100 import urllib.request
1101 DATA=b'some data'
1102 req = urllib.request.Request(url='http://localhost:8080', data=DATA,method='PUT')
1103 f = urllib.request.urlopen(req)
1104 print(f.status)
1105 print(f.reason)
1106
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001107Use of Basic HTTP Authentication::
1108
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001109 import urllib.request
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001110 # Create an OpenerDirector with support for Basic HTTP Authentication...
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001111 auth_handler = urllib.request.HTTPBasicAuthHandler()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001112 auth_handler.add_password(realm='PDQ Application',
1113 uri='https://mahler:8092/site-updates.py',
1114 user='klem',
1115 passwd='kadidd!ehopper')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001116 opener = urllib.request.build_opener(auth_handler)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001117 # ...and install it globally so it can be used with urlopen.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001118 urllib.request.install_opener(opener)
1119 urllib.request.urlopen('http://www.example.com/login.html')
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001120
1121:func:`build_opener` provides many handlers by default, including a
1122:class:`ProxyHandler`. By default, :class:`ProxyHandler` uses the environment
1123variables named ``<scheme>_proxy``, where ``<scheme>`` is the URL scheme
1124involved. For example, the :envvar:`http_proxy` environment variable is read to
1125obtain the HTTP proxy's URL.
1126
1127This example replaces the default :class:`ProxyHandler` with one that uses
Georg Brandl2ee470f2008-07-16 12:55:28 +00001128programmatically-supplied proxy URLs, and adds proxy authorization support with
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001129:class:`ProxyBasicAuthHandler`. ::
1130
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001131 proxy_handler = urllib.request.ProxyHandler({'http': 'http://www.example.com:3128/'})
Senthil Kumaran037f8362009-12-24 02:24:37 +00001132 proxy_auth_handler = urllib.request.ProxyBasicAuthHandler()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001133 proxy_auth_handler.add_password('realm', 'host', 'username', 'password')
1134
Senthil Kumaran037f8362009-12-24 02:24:37 +00001135 opener = urllib.request.build_opener(proxy_handler, proxy_auth_handler)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001136 # This time, rather than install the OpenerDirector, we use it directly:
1137 opener.open('http://www.example.com/login.html')
1138
1139Adding HTTP headers:
1140
1141Use the *headers* argument to the :class:`Request` constructor, or::
1142
Georg Brandl029986a2008-06-23 11:44:14 +00001143 import urllib.request
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001144 req = urllib.request.Request('http://www.example.com/')
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001145 req.add_header('Referer', 'http://www.python.org/')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001146 r = urllib.request.urlopen(req)
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001147
1148:class:`OpenerDirector` automatically adds a :mailheader:`User-Agent` header to
1149every :class:`Request`. To change this::
1150
Georg Brandl029986a2008-06-23 11:44:14 +00001151 import urllib.request
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001152 opener = urllib.request.build_opener()
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001153 opener.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0')]
1154 opener.open('http://www.example.com/')
1155
1156Also, remember that a few standard headers (:mailheader:`Content-Length`,
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -07001157:mailheader:`Content-Type` without charset parameter and :mailheader:`Host`)
1158are added when the :class:`Request` is passed to :func:`urlopen` (or
1159:meth:`OpenerDirector.open`).
Georg Brandl116aa622007-08-15 14:28:22 +00001160
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001161.. _urllib-examples:
1162
1163Here is an example session that uses the ``GET`` method to retrieve a URL
1164containing parameters::
1165
1166 >>> import urllib.request
1167 >>> import urllib.parse
1168 >>> params = urllib.parse.urlencode({'spam': 1, 'eggs': 2, 'bacon': 0})
1169 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen("http://www.musi-cal.com/cgi-bin/query?%s" % params)
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001170 >>> print(f.read().decode('utf-8'))
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001171
Senthil Kumaran29333122011-02-11 11:25:47 +00001172The following example uses the ``POST`` method instead. Note that params output
1173from urlencode is encoded to bytes before it is sent to urlopen as data::
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001174
1175 >>> import urllib.request
1176 >>> import urllib.parse
Senthil Kumaran6b3434a2012-03-15 18:11:16 -07001177 >>> data = urllib.parse.urlencode({'spam': 1, 'eggs': 2, 'bacon': 0})
1178 >>> data = data.encode('utf-8')
1179 >>> request = urllib.request.Request("http://requestb.in/xrbl82xr")
1180 >>> # adding charset parameter to the Content-Type header.
1181 >>> request.add_header("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=utf-8")
1182 >>> f = urllib.request.urlopen(request, data)
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001183 >>> print(f.read().decode('utf-8'))
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001184
1185The following example uses an explicitly specified HTTP proxy, overriding
1186environment settings::
1187
1188 >>> import urllib.request
1189 >>> proxies = {'http': 'http://proxy.example.com:8080/'}
1190 >>> opener = urllib.request.FancyURLopener(proxies)
1191 >>> f = opener.open("http://www.python.org")
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001192 >>> f.read().decode('utf-8')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001193
1194The following example uses no proxies at all, overriding environment settings::
1195
1196 >>> import urllib.request
1197 >>> opener = urllib.request.FancyURLopener({})
1198 >>> f = opener.open("http://www.python.org/")
Senthil Kumaranb213ee32010-04-15 17:18:22 +00001199 >>> f.read().decode('utf-8')
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001200
1201
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001202Legacy interface
1203----------------
1204
1205The following functions and classes are ported from the Python 2 module
1206``urllib`` (as opposed to ``urllib2``). They might become deprecated at
1207some point in the future.
1208
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001209.. function:: urlretrieve(url, filename=None, reporthook=None, data=None)
1210
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001211 Copy a network object denoted by a URL to a local file. If the URL
1212 points to a local file, the object will not be copied unless filename is supplied.
1213 Return a tuple ``(filename, headers)`` where *filename* is the
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001214 local file name under which the object can be found, and *headers* is whatever
1215 the :meth:`info` method of the object returned by :func:`urlopen` returned (for
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001216 a remote object). Exceptions are the same as for :func:`urlopen`.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001217
1218 The second argument, if present, specifies the file location to copy to (if
1219 absent, the location will be a tempfile with a generated name). The third
1220 argument, if present, is a hook function that will be called once on
1221 establishment of the network connection and once after each block read
1222 thereafter. The hook will be passed three arguments; a count of blocks
1223 transferred so far, a block size in bytes, and the total size of the file. The
1224 third argument may be ``-1`` on older FTP servers which do not return a file
1225 size in response to a retrieval request.
1226
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001227 The following example illustrates the most common usage scenario::
1228
1229 >>> import urllib.request
1230 >>> local_filename, headers = urllib.request.urlretrieve('http://python.org/')
1231 >>> html = open(local_filename)
1232 >>> html.close()
1233
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001234 If the *url* uses the :file:`http:` scheme identifier, the optional *data*
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001235 argument may be given to specify a ``POST`` request (normally the request
Senthil Kumaran87684e62012-03-14 18:08:13 -07001236 type is ``GET``). The *data* argument must be a bytes object in standard
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001237 :mimetype:`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` format; see the
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001238 :func:`urllib.parse.urlencode` function.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001239
1240 :func:`urlretrieve` will raise :exc:`ContentTooShortError` when it detects that
1241 the amount of data available was less than the expected amount (which is the
1242 size reported by a *Content-Length* header). This can occur, for example, when
1243 the download is interrupted.
1244
1245 The *Content-Length* is treated as a lower bound: if there's more data to read,
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001246 urlretrieve reads more data, but if less data is available, it raises the
1247 exception.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001248
1249 You can still retrieve the downloaded data in this case, it is stored in the
1250 :attr:`content` attribute of the exception instance.
1251
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001252 If no *Content-Length* header was supplied, urlretrieve can not check the size
1253 of the data it has downloaded, and just returns it. In this case you just have
1254 to assume that the download was successful.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001255
1256.. function:: urlcleanup()
1257
Senthil Kumarane24f96a2012-03-13 19:29:33 -07001258 Cleans up temporary files that may have been left behind by previous
1259 calls to :func:`urlretrieve`.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001260
1261.. class:: URLopener(proxies=None, **x509)
1262
Senthil Kumaran6227c692013-03-18 17:09:50 -07001263 .. deprecated:: 3.3
1264
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001265 Base class for opening and reading URLs. Unless you need to support opening
1266 objects using schemes other than :file:`http:`, :file:`ftp:`, or :file:`file:`,
1267 you probably want to use :class:`FancyURLopener`.
1268
1269 By default, the :class:`URLopener` class sends a :mailheader:`User-Agent` header
1270 of ``urllib/VVV``, where *VVV* is the :mod:`urllib` version number.
1271 Applications can define their own :mailheader:`User-Agent` header by subclassing
1272 :class:`URLopener` or :class:`FancyURLopener` and setting the class attribute
1273 :attr:`version` to an appropriate string value in the subclass definition.
1274
1275 The optional *proxies* parameter should be a dictionary mapping scheme names to
1276 proxy URLs, where an empty dictionary turns proxies off completely. Its default
1277 value is ``None``, in which case environmental proxy settings will be used if
1278 present, as discussed in the definition of :func:`urlopen`, above.
1279
1280 Additional keyword parameters, collected in *x509*, may be used for
1281 authentication of the client when using the :file:`https:` scheme. The keywords
1282 *key_file* and *cert_file* are supported to provide an SSL key and certificate;
1283 both are needed to support client authentication.
1284
Antoine Pitrou4272d6a2011-10-12 19:10:10 +02001285 :class:`URLopener` objects will raise an :exc:`OSError` exception if the server
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001286 returns an error code.
1287
1288 .. method:: open(fullurl, data=None)
1289
1290 Open *fullurl* using the appropriate protocol. This method sets up cache and
1291 proxy information, then calls the appropriate open method with its input
1292 arguments. If the scheme is not recognized, :meth:`open_unknown` is called.
1293 The *data* argument has the same meaning as the *data* argument of
1294 :func:`urlopen`.
1295
1296
1297 .. method:: open_unknown(fullurl, data=None)
1298
1299 Overridable interface to open unknown URL types.
1300
1301
1302 .. method:: retrieve(url, filename=None, reporthook=None, data=None)
1303
1304 Retrieves the contents of *url* and places it in *filename*. The return value
1305 is a tuple consisting of a local filename and either a
1306 :class:`email.message.Message` object containing the response headers (for remote
1307 URLs) or ``None`` (for local URLs). The caller must then open and read the
1308 contents of *filename*. If *filename* is not given and the URL refers to a
1309 local file, the input filename is returned. If the URL is non-local and
1310 *filename* is not given, the filename is the output of :func:`tempfile.mktemp`
1311 with a suffix that matches the suffix of the last path component of the input
1312 URL. If *reporthook* is given, it must be a function accepting three numeric
Gregory P. Smith6b0bdab2012-11-10 13:43:44 -08001313 parameters: A chunk number, the maximum size chunks are read in and the total size of the download
1314 (-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 +00001315 network. *reporthook* is ignored for local URLs.
1316
1317 If the *url* uses the :file:`http:` scheme identifier, the optional *data*
1318 argument may be given to specify a ``POST`` request (normally the request type
1319 is ``GET``). The *data* argument must in standard
Serhiy Storchaka5e1c0532013-10-13 20:06:50 +03001320 :mimetype:`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` format; see the
1321 :func:`urllib.parse.urlencode` function.
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001322
1323
1324 .. attribute:: version
1325
1326 Variable that specifies the user agent of the opener object. To get
1327 :mod:`urllib` to tell servers that it is a particular user agent, set this in a
1328 subclass as a class variable or in the constructor before calling the base
1329 constructor.
1330
1331
1332.. class:: FancyURLopener(...)
1333
Senthil Kumaran6227c692013-03-18 17:09:50 -07001334 .. deprecated:: 3.3
1335
Antoine Pitroub8eb9cb2010-12-15 19:07:26 +00001336 :class:`FancyURLopener` subclasses :class:`URLopener` providing default handling
1337 for the following HTTP response codes: 301, 302, 303, 307 and 401. For the 30x
1338 response codes listed above, the :mailheader:`Location` header is used to fetch
1339 the actual URL. For 401 response codes (authentication required), basic HTTP
1340 authentication is performed. For the 30x response codes, recursion is bounded
1341 by the value of the *maxtries* attribute, which defaults to 10.
1342
1343 For all other response codes, the method :meth:`http_error_default` is called
1344 which you can override in subclasses to handle the error appropriately.
1345
1346 .. note::
1347
1348 According to the letter of :rfc:`2616`, 301 and 302 responses to POST requests
1349 must not be automatically redirected without confirmation by the user. In
1350 reality, browsers do allow automatic redirection of these responses, changing
1351 the POST to a GET, and :mod:`urllib` reproduces this behaviour.
1352
1353 The parameters to the constructor are the same as those for :class:`URLopener`.
1354
1355 .. note::
1356
1357 When performing basic authentication, a :class:`FancyURLopener` instance calls
1358 its :meth:`prompt_user_passwd` method. The default implementation asks the
1359 users for the required information on the controlling terminal. A subclass may
1360 override this method to support more appropriate behavior if needed.
1361
1362 The :class:`FancyURLopener` class offers one additional method that should be
1363 overloaded to provide the appropriate behavior:
1364
1365 .. method:: prompt_user_passwd(host, realm)
1366
1367 Return information needed to authenticate the user at the given host in the
1368 specified security realm. The return value should be a tuple, ``(user,
1369 password)``, which can be used for basic authentication.
1370
1371 The implementation prompts for this information on the terminal; an application
1372 should override this method to use an appropriate interaction model in the local
1373 environment.
1374
1375
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001376:mod:`urllib.request` Restrictions
1377----------------------------------
1378
1379 .. index::
1380 pair: HTTP; protocol
1381 pair: FTP; protocol
1382
Florent Xicluna83386da2011-10-28 22:03:55 +02001383* Currently, only the following protocols are supported: HTTP (versions 0.9 and
Antoine Pitroudf204be2012-11-24 17:59:08 +01001384 1.0), FTP, local files, and data URLs.
1385
1386 .. versionchanged:: 3.4 Added support for data URLs.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001387
Florent Xicluna305bb662011-10-28 22:14:41 +02001388* The caching feature of :func:`urlretrieve` has been disabled until someone
1389 finds the time to hack proper processing of Expiration time headers.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001390
1391* There should be a function to query whether a particular URL is in the cache.
1392
1393* For backward compatibility, if a URL appears to point to a local file but the
1394 file can't be opened, the URL is re-interpreted using the FTP protocol. This
1395 can sometimes cause confusing error messages.
1396
1397* The :func:`urlopen` and :func:`urlretrieve` functions can cause arbitrarily
1398 long delays while waiting for a network connection to be set up. This means
1399 that it is difficult to build an interactive Web client using these functions
1400 without using threads.
1401
1402 .. index::
1403 single: HTML
1404 pair: HTTP; protocol
1405
1406* The data returned by :func:`urlopen` or :func:`urlretrieve` is the raw data
1407 returned by the server. This may be binary data (such as an image), plain text
1408 or (for example) HTML. The HTTP protocol provides type information in the reply
1409 header, which can be inspected by looking at the :mailheader:`Content-Type`
1410 header. If the returned data is HTML, you can use the module
1411 :mod:`html.parser` to parse it.
1412
1413 .. index:: single: FTP
1414
1415* The code handling the FTP protocol cannot differentiate between a file and a
1416 directory. This can lead to unexpected behavior when attempting to read a URL
1417 that points to a file that is not accessible. If the URL ends in a ``/``, it is
1418 assumed to refer to a directory and will be handled accordingly. But if an
1419 attempt to read a file leads to a 550 error (meaning the URL cannot be found or
1420 is not accessible, often for permission reasons), then the path is treated as a
1421 directory in order to handle the case when a directory is specified by a URL but
1422 the trailing ``/`` has been left off. This can cause misleading results when
1423 you try to fetch a file whose read permissions make it inaccessible; the FTP
1424 code will try to read it, fail with a 550 error, and then perform a directory
1425 listing for the unreadable file. If fine-grained control is needed, consider
Éric Araujo09eb9802011-03-20 18:30:37 +01001426 using the :mod:`ftplib` module, subclassing :class:`FancyURLopener`, or changing
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001427 *_urlopener* to meet your needs.
1428
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001429
1430
Georg Brandl8175dae2010-11-29 14:53:15 +00001431:mod:`urllib.response` --- Response classes used by urllib
1432==========================================================
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001433
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001434.. module:: urllib.response
1435 :synopsis: Response classes used by urllib.
1436
1437The :mod:`urllib.response` module defines functions and classes which define a
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001438minimal file like interface, including ``read()`` and ``readline()``. The
Ezio Melottib9701422010-11-18 19:48:27 +00001439typical response object is an addinfourl instance, which defines an ``info()``
Georg Brandl0f7ede42008-06-23 11:23:31 +00001440method and that returns headers and a ``geturl()`` method that returns the url.
Senthil Kumaranaca8fd72008-06-23 04:41:59 +00001441Functions defined by this module are used internally by the
1442:mod:`urllib.request` module.
1443