What is Python's urllib and how do I use it?

What is Python's urllib and how do I use it?

Python's urllib is a module for working with URLs. It allows you to fetch data across the web, handle URL encoding, and more.

Can you show me a simple example of using urllib to fetch a webpage?

Sure! You can use urllib.request to fetch a webpage like this:

import urllib.request

response = urllib.request.urlopen('http://example.com')
webContent = response.read()
print(webContent)

What if I want to handle exceptions while fetching a URL?

You can use a try-except block to handle exceptions. Here's an example:

try:
    response = urllib.request.urlopen('http://example.com')
except urllib.error.URLError as e:
    print(f'Failed to fetch URL: {e.reason}')

Are there any other functions in urllib I should know about?

Yes, urllib.parse is useful for parsing URLs, and urllib.error handles exceptions. Each submodule has its own set of functions.