Problem using urllib to download images

[Jerry Hill]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 2:21 PM,  <tstrogen at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Then perhaps it's a problem with my os.
> [TERMINAL SESSION]
> [18:16:33 Mon Nov 03] python
> Python 2.6 (trunk:66714:66715M, Oct  1 2008, 18:36:04)
> [GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5370)] on darwin
> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>> import urllib
>>>> url = 'http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en'

That's not the URL of an image file.  Maybe you're looking for
url = 'http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif'

>>>> filename = 'logo.gif'
>>>> image = urllib.URLopener()
>>>> image.retrieve(url, filename)
> ('logo.gif', <httplib.HTTPMessage instance at 0x5196e8>)
> [/TERMINAL SESSION]
> And here's the error message I get when I try to open it: "File Error:
> Couldn't open the file. It may be corrupt or a file format that
> Preview doesn't recognize.".
> I have had a similar result trying  to open it with other programs.

That's because you downloaded some HTML and saved it in a file named
logo.gif.  That's unlikely to work in any image viewing program.  Try
opening the file you downloaded in a text editor and you'll see.

-- 
Jerry