Web Access Functions

import introcs

With the elimination of urllib2 and the move to Unicode, Python 3 has made web connections a little more difficult for students just starting out. These functions are intended to simplify things once again.

urlread

introcs.urlread(url)

Opens the web page at url and returns its contents.

If there is no web page at url a URLError. If the url is malformed, it raises a ValueError instead.

Parameters

url (str) – The web page url

Returns

The contents of the web page at url if it exists.

Return type

str

urlinfo

introcs.urlinfo(url)

Returns the headers for the web page at url.

The headers are returned as a dictionary.

If there is no web page at url a URLError. If the url is malformed, it raises a ValueError instead.

Parameters

url (str) – The web page url

Returns

The headers for the web page at url if it exists.

Return type

dict