how to call basic browser functions?

[BLElliott]

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