urllib2 pinger : insight as to use, cause of hang-up?

[EP]

"Mahesh" advised:
>
> Timing it out will probably solve it.
> 


Thanks.

Follow-on question regarding implementing a timeout for use by urllib2.  I am guessing the simplest way to do this is via socket.setdefaulttimeout(), but I am not sure if this sets a global parameter, and if so, whether it might be reset via instantiations of urllib, urllib2, httplib, etc.  I assume socket and the timeout parameter is in the global namespace and that I can just reset it at will for application to all the socket module 'users'.  Is that right?

(TIA)


[experimenting]

>>> import urllib2plus
>>> urllib2plus.setSocketTimeOut(1)
>>> urllib2plus.urlopen('http://zomething.com')

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#52>", line 1, in -toplevel-
    urllib2plus.urlopen('http://zomething.com')
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 130, in urlopen
    return _opener.open(url, data)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 361, in open
    response = self._open(req, data)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 379, in _open
    '_open', req)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 340, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 1024, in http_open
    return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 999, in do_open
    raise URLError(err)
URLError: <urlopen error timed out>

>>> urllib2plus.setSocketTimeOut(10)
>>> urllib2plus.urlopen('http://zomething.com')
<addinfourl at 12449152 whose fp = <socket._fileobject object at 0x00BE1340>>

>>> import socket
>>> socket.setdefaulttimeout(0)
>>> urllib2plus.urlopen('http://zomething.com')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#60>", line 1, in -toplevel-
    urllib2plus.urlopen('http://zomething.com')
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 130, in urlopen
    return _opener.open(url, data)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 361, in open
    response = self._open(req, data)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 379, in _open
    '_open', req)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 340, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 1024, in http_open
    return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
  File "C:\Python24\lib\urllib2plus.py", line 999, in do_open
    raise URLError(err)
URLError: <urlopen error (10035, 'The socket operation could not complete without blocking')>
>>> socket.setdefaulttimeout(1)
>>> urllib2plus.urlopen('http://zomething.com')
<addinfourl at 12449992 whose fp = <socket._fileobject object at 0x00BE1420>>