VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
Jnana Sangama, Belgaum- 590 018
Presentation Report
“Advantages of Using Libraries Like urllib for Retrieving Web Pages”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DATA SCIENCE
During the Academic year 2024-2025
Submitted By
DIVIJA VYSHNAVI .V (1DB21AD014)
Submitted to
Dr. Gowramma G S
Head Of The Department
Dept. of AI&DS
Department of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science
Don Bosco Institute of Technology
Mysore Road, Kumbalgodu, Bengaluru-56007
Understanding urllib: A Python Library for Web Retrieval
1. What is urllib?
urllib is a Python module designed for interacting with and retrieving data from the web.
It supports fetching URLs, handling HTTP requests, and processing web content.
2. Key Advantages of Using urllib
1. Ease of Use:
Simplifies HTTP requests using built-in methods like urlopen().
2. Comprehensive Functionality:
Supports various URL operations, including parsing, encoding, and retrieving.
3. Error Handling:
Provides exceptions for HTTP errors (e.g., HTTPError, URLError).
4. Secure Connections:
Allows HTTPS requests with SSL/TLS support.
5. Integration with Python:
Works seamlessly with other Python libraries for data processing.
3. urllib vs. Other Libraries
Unlike requests, urllib is part of Python's standard library and requires no additional
installation.
Offers lower-level control compared to requests.
Simplifies HTTP requests using built-in methods like urlopen().
2. Comprehensive Functionality:
Supports various URL operations, including parsing, encoding, and retrieving.
3. Error Handling:
Provides exceptions for HTTP errors (e.g., HTTPError, URLError).
4. Secure Connections:
Allows HTTPS requests with SSL/TLS support.
5. Integration with Python:
Works seamlessly with other Python libraries for data processing.
2. urllib vs. Other Libraries
Unlike requests, urllib is part of Python's standard library and requires no additional
installation.
Offers lower-level control compared to requests.
4. Practical Use Cases
1. Web Scraping:
Retrieve HTML pages for analysis.
2. API Requests:
Fetch JSON or XML data from REST APIs.
3. File Downloads:
Download images, videos, or documents programmatically.
5. Example Code
import urllib.request
url = "http://example.com"
response = urllib.request.urlopen(url)
html = response.read().decode('utf-8')
print(html)
6. Why Learn urllib?
Essential for automating web-based tasks.
Foundation for understanding more advanced Python web libraries.
