Great! I've never looked in to the urllibs before, but it sounds like they're just what I need. And no, I'm not thinking of anything so sophisticated as executing applets or anything -- just those "Save * as ..." functions, where * might be "page", "image", "link target" etc.
I also hadn't known about wget, so that's good to know, too. thanks! - bruce Peter Hansen wrote: > BLElliott wrote: > >> I think this is a very basic question, so feel free to direct me to a >> FAQ or other resource to go and get myself educated, if that's the >> best answer. >> >> Can I perform web browser functions from a script, for example, doing >> file downloads, if I can construct the file URL within my script? As >> an example, suppose there's a file I download periodically, but its >> URL changes with the current date. If I can write a script that will >> automatically generate the URL, can it then go and fetch the file for me? > > > Yes, you can definitely do that. Look for examples of using "urllib" or > "urllib2". There should be many that are close to the sort of thing you > want. Or you could simply use a command line utility such as "wget" to > accomplish much the same thing and avoid almost any programming. > > (Note that if in addition to downloading the actual contents of the > page, you will require more sophisticated features of a real browser, > such as Javascript or Java execution, you'll need capabilities far > beyond what urllib2 can provide. And you probably don't want to go > there right now.) > > -Peter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
