11.6 `httplib` -- HTTP protocol client

This module defines classes which implement the client side of the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. It is normally not used directly -- the module urllib uses it to handle URLs that use HTTP and HTTPS.

Note: HTTPS support is only available if the socket module was compiled with SSL support.

Note: The public interface for this module changed substantially in Python 2.0. The HTTP class is retained only for backward compatibility with 1.5.2. It should not be used in new code. Refer to the online docstrings for usage.

The constants defined in this module are:

HTTP_PORT: The default port for the HTTP protocol (always 80).

HTTPS_PORT: The default port for the HTTPS protocol (always 443).

The module provides the following classes:

class HTTPConnection( host[, port])

An HTTPConnection instance represents one transaction with an HTTP server. It should be instantiated passing it a host and optional port number. If no port number is passed, the port is extracted from the host string if it has the form host:port, else the default HTTP port (80) is used. For example, the following calls all create instances that connect to the server at the same host and port:

>>> h1 = httplib.HTTPConnection('www.cwi.nl')
>>> h2 = httplib.HTTPConnection('www.cwi.nl:80')
>>> h3 = httplib.HTTPConnection('www.cwi.nl', 80)

New in version 2.0.

class HTTPSConnection( host[, port, key_file, cert_file])

A subclass of HTTPConnection that uses SSL for communication with secure servers. Default port is 443. key_file is the name of a PEM formatted file that contains your private key. cert_file is a PEM formatted certificate chain file.

Warning: This does not do any certificate verification!

New in version 2.0.

class HTTPResponse( sock[, debuglevel=0][, strict=0]): Class whose instances are returned upon successful connection. Not instantiated directly by user. New in version 2.0.

The following exceptions are raised as appropriate:

exception HTTPException: The base class of the other exceptions in this module. It is a subclass of Exception. New in version 2.0.

exception NotConnected: A subclass of HTTPException. New in version 2.0.

exception InvalidURL: A subclass of HTTPException, raised if a port is given and is either non-numeric or empty. New in version 2.3.

exception UnknownProtocol: A subclass of HTTPException. New in version 2.0.

exception UnknownTransferEncoding: A subclass of HTTPException. New in version 2.0.

exception UnimplementedFileMode: A subclass of HTTPException. New in version 2.0.

exception IncompleteRead: A subclass of HTTPException. New in version 2.0.

exception ImproperConnectionState: A subclass of HTTPException. New in version 2.0.

exception CannotSendRequest: A subclass of ImproperConnectionState. New in version 2.0.

exception CannotSendHeader: A subclass of ImproperConnectionState. New in version 2.0.

exception ResponseNotReady: A subclass of ImproperConnectionState. New in version 2.0.

exception BadStatusLine: A subclass of HTTPException. Raised if a server responds with a HTTP status code that we don't understand. New in version 2.0.

Subsections

See About this document... for information on suggesting changes.

11.6 httplib -- HTTP protocol client

11.6 `httplib` -- HTTP protocol client