testing a website from python

[Josef Meile]

Hi,

> I just want to test that a given website is up or not from a python 
> script.  I thought of using wget as an os command.  Any better ideas?
Here is how I did it:

import urllib2
import socket
def checkUrl(url, timeout=1):
   """Checks an url for a python version greater
      than 2.3.3.

      Note: For me isn't important the kind of
            HTTP Error. If you want to know it,
            then take a look at the existent
            solutions like CMFLinkChecker and
            see how they extract the code from
            the error message.
   """
   error={'code':1, 'msg':'Success'}
   defTimeOut=socket.getdefaulttimeout()
   socket.setdefaulttimeout(timeout)
   try:
     urllib2.urlopen(url)
   except (urllib2.HTTPError, urllib2.URLError,
           socket.error, socket.sslerror):
     error['code']=-2
     error['msg']="The link: \"${link}\" couldn't be validated"
   except:
     socket.setdefaulttimeout(defTimeOut)
     raise

   socket.setdefaulttimeout(defTimeOut)
   return error