This script reads the contents of a web file and copies them into a local file, named the same as the web file.
Python, 26 lines
Download
Copy to clipboard1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 | #!/usr/bin/env python
"""File downloading from the web.
"""
def download(url):
"""Copy the contents of a file from a given URL
to a local file.
"""
import urllib
webFile = urllib.urlopen(url)
localFile = open(url.split('/')[-1], 'w')
localFile.write(webFile.read())
webFile.close()
localFile.close()
if __name__ == '__main__':
import sys
if len(sys.argv) == 2:
try:
download(sys.argv[1])
except IOError:
print 'Filename not found.'
else:
import os
print 'usage: %s http://server.com/path/to/filename' % os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])
|
A fast alternative to the Unix "wget" bash command. Windows platforms do not support any program of similar nature, so this one is a good solution.
Tags: ui
urllib. urllib.urlretrieve will do this. One problem with the code as given is that the entire file will be read into memory, and then written out to the file; briefly, but for a moment your program could get very memory hungry. urlretrieve will write the file out in chunks. shutil.copyfileobj will also copy between file objects in a chunked manner.
Tip appreciated. Thank you a lot Ian. I will bare this in mind.
What's its use ? Would it be better to take a optional local file name ? You current code might clobber an important local file.
It really depends on what the use context is.
wget is available for Windows. http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
I use this extensively for downloading images, using something similar to this:
os.system('wget %s -a log.log' % fullurl)
Under windows images fail. You need to set the b flag in the write statement
localFile = open(url.split('/')[-1], 'wb')
Window isn't good at telling the difference we have to tell it.
Is there a handy way to list all files under an http url, then download them one-by-one using urlib?
Probably you could have used the os module
like import os
localFile=os.path.split()[-1]
this is compatible with both windows and linux
bye!!!