script to download Yahoo Finance data

[dan roberts]

Folks,

This is my first Python project so please bear with me. I need to
download data from Yahoo Finance in CSV format. The symbols are
provided in a text file, and the project details are included below.
Does anyone have some sample code that I could adapt?

Many thanks in advance,
dan

/*---NEED TO DO------*/
Considering IBM as an example, the steps are as follows.

A. Part 1 - download 'Historical Prices' from
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ibm
1. Get the Start Date from the form at the top of this page,
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=IBM
(I can provide the end date.)
2. Click on Get Prices
3. Then finally click on Download to Spreadsheet and save the file
with a name like IBM_StartDate_EndDate.csv.
(2) and (3) are equivalent to using this link directly,
http://ichart.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=IBM&a=00&b=2&c=1962&d=05&e=30&f=2004&g=d&ignore=.csv
Can you please post an example of a loop that would do the above for a
series of company symbols, saved in a text file?

B. Part 2 - download 'Options' from http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ibm
This seems more difficult because the data is in html format (there's
no option to download CSV files). What's the easiest/best way to take
care of this?