urllib proxy support confusion

[Grant Edwards]

Reading through the doc at http://docs.python.org/lib/module-urllib.html,
there are several paragraphs (including code examples) showing
how you specify what proxies to use when calling urlopen():

   Alternatively, the optional proxies argument may be used to
   explicitly specify proxies. [...]

The explanation of how to specify proxies is followed by this
paragraph denying that the ability to do so exists:

   The urlopen() function does not support explicit proxy
   specification. If you need to override environmental proxy
   settings, use URLopener, or a subclass such as
   FancyURLopener.

That seems a bit baffling.  If it urlopen doesn't support
specifying proxies, why are there examples showing how to do
it? If it does support specifying proxies, what is the pragraph
quoted above supposed to mean?

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Am I accompanied by a
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