[Web-SIG] more work on httplib?

[Bill Janssen]

I've been working on a personal digital library server, written in
Python, built on top of Medusa, now in beta test at
http://uplib.parc.com/.  We're releasing it under the GPLv2 (actually,
have already released it to our beta testers -- if you'd like to join
the fun, just create an account on the blog).

As part of the system, I had to write a number of extensions to the
core library's HTTP and HTML support, including

  versions of httplib.HTTP and HTTPSConnection that verify the server's
    certificates
  htmlescape(), a version of cgi.escape() that quotes HTML correctly
  utility routines for client-side form manipulation:
    encode_multipart_formdata, http_post_multipart, https_post_multipart
  a list of defined HTTP status codes, by name
  a version of urllib.urlretrieve() that handles cookies, proxies,
    and redirects (I think this could be written as a urllib2 Opener)
  cookie readers for Firefox and Safari cookie file formats
  a web site caching function that fetches all ancillary material (CSS,
    ECMAscript, images, etc) and links it in properly, essentially
    creating what Mozilla calls a "Web Page Complete" version

Not to mention the new SSL module.  I found it irritating that I had
to write all of this myself, instead of just pulling it from the
standard library.  Now that it's released, what's already in the
standard library (that I just didn't know about :-)?  And which items
should I file bug reports on?

Bill