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Web Technologies QA

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15 views5 pages

Web Technologies QA

Uploaded by

likithgn17
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Web Technologies - Q&A

Q: What is HTTP, and how does it work in web communication? Describe the structure of HTTP

requests and responses.

A: HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the foundation of web communication. It is a stateless protocol used for

transmitting data between a client (usually a browser) and a server. HTTP works on a request-response model, where

the client sends a request, and the server returns a response.

Structure of an HTTP Request:

- Request Line: Includes the HTTP method (GET, POST, etc.), the URL, and the version (e.g., HTTP/1.1)

- Headers: Metadata such as User-Agent, Host, Accept, etc.

- Blank Line: Separates headers from the body

- Body (Optional): Contains data sent to the server (e.g., form inputs)

Structure of an HTTP Response:

- Status Line: Includes HTTP version, status code (e.g., 200 OK), and message

- Headers: Metadata about the response

- Blank Line: Separates headers from the body

- Body: Contains the requested data (HTML, JSON, file, etc.)

HTTP enables communication and data transfer across the internet, forming the basis of web browsing.

Q: How can you retrieve web pages and images using the urllib library in Python?

A: The urllib library in Python is used to access URLs and perform HTTP requests. To retrieve web pages, you can use

urllib.request.urlopen(). To download images or binary files, use urllib.request.urlretrieve().

Example to retrieve a web page:

import urllib.request

url = 'https://www.example.com'

response = urllib.request.urlopen(url)

html = response.read().decode('utf-8')

Example to download an image:


Web Technologies - Q&A

import urllib.request

image_url = 'https://www.example.com/image.jpg'

urllib.request.urlretrieve(image_url, 'image.jpg')

These methods are useful for web scraping and downloading content from the web.

Q: Why is parsing HTML and web scraping important? Explain.

A: Parsing HTML and web scraping are important because they allow the extraction of useful data from web pages. This

is especially helpful when data is not available through APIs.

Reasons it's important:

- Access Public Data: Gather data like prices, reviews, and articles.

- Automate Tasks: Collect data without manual copy-pasting.

- Enable Research and Analysis: Extract data for machine learning or trend analysis.

- API Replacement: Scrape data when APIs are not available.

In short, web scraping and HTML parsing unlock structured data from unstructured sources on the web.

Q: Compare parsing HTML with regular expressions and BeautifulSoup.

A: Regular Expressions:

- Suitable for simple, flat patterns.

- Not reliable for nested or malformed HTML.

- Harder to maintain and read.

BeautifulSoup:

- Designed for HTML/XML parsing.

- Handles broken or nested HTML well.

- Easier to read, write, and maintain.

Conclusion: Use BeautifulSoup for robust and structured HTML parsing. Regular expressions should only be used for

very simple extraction tasks.


Web Technologies - Q&A

Q: What is XML, and how is it used for data? Show how to parse XML in Python.

A: XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a format for storing and transporting structured data. It uses custom tags and

a tree structure.

Use Cases:

- Data interchange

- Configuration files

- Web services (SOAP)

Python XML parsing example:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

xml_data = """<students><student><name>John</name></student></students>"""

root = ET.fromstring(xml_data)

for student in root.findall('student'):

name = student.find('name').text

print(name)

Q: What is JSON, and why is it better than XML? Show how to parse JSON in Python.

A: JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight format for data exchange. It's easier to read, write, and parse than

XML.

Advantages over XML:

- Cleaner syntax

- Smaller size

- Supports native data types

- Easier to use with JavaScript

Parsing JSON in Python:

import json

json_data = '{"name": "John", "age": 30}'

data = json.loads(json_data)
Web Technologies - Q&A

print(data['name'])

Q: How do web services retrieve external data? Explain with example.

A: Web services retrieve external data by making HTTP requests to external APIs. The response is usually in JSON or

XML format.

Example:

import requests

url = 'https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=London&appid=API_KEY'

response = requests.get(url)

if response.status_code == 200:

data = response.json()

print(data['main']['temp'])

This allows web applications to use real-time data from other systems.

Q: How can you read binary files with urllib? What are common use cases?

A: Binary files (images, PDFs, audio) can be read with urllib by using urlopen() and reading the content as bytes.

Example:

import urllib.request

url = 'https://example.com/file.jpg'

response = urllib.request.urlopen(url)

data = response.read()

with open('file.jpg', 'wb') as f:

f.write(data)

Common use cases:

- Downloading images

- Fetching PDF reports

- Retrieving audio/video content


Web Technologies - Q&A

- Saving software or datasets from the web

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