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What command to use instead of urllib.request.urlretrieve?

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What command to use instead of urllib.request.urlretrieve?
f.ineman
f.ineman Teacher

I’ve been using the `urllib.request.urlretrieve` command in my Python script to download files from the internet. However, recently I noticed that the command is not working as expected, even though it has been working fine previously. When I try to run the code, it gives me an HTTP Error 403: Forbidden message.

I’m not sure what’s causing this issue. I tried changing the URL of the file that I’m trying to download, but that didn’t help. I also tried `urllib.request.urlopen` command instead of `urllib.request.urlretrieve` command, but that gave me an error message saying “AttributeError: ‘HTTPResponse’ object has no attribute ‘write'”. Here’s the code that I’m using:


import urllib.request

url = 'http://www.example.com/file.zip'
filename = 'file.zip'
urllib.request.urlretrieve(url, filename)

I’m not sure what has gone wrong. Is it a problem with my code or something else? Can anyone help me figure out how to download files from the internet using Python?

pythonurlliburlretrieve
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  1. mammermammer Teacher
    2022-06-30T10:31:44+00:00Added an answer about 9 months ago

    To replace `urlretrieve`, you can use the `requests` module in Python. Instead of using the `urlretrieve` method, you can use the `get` method from the `requests` module to download files.

    Here is an example code snippet:

    “`Python
    import requests

    # set the URL of the file you want to download
    file_url = ‘https://example.com/file.zip’

    # use the `get` method from the `requests` module to download the file
    response = requests.get(file_url)

    # check if request was successful
    try:
    response.raise_for_status()
    except Exception as exc:
    print(f’There was a problem: {exc}’)

    # write the contents of the file downloaded to another file
    with open(‘my_file.zip’, ‘wb’) as f:
    for chunk in response.iter_content(chunk_size=8192):
    f.write(chunk)
    “`

    In this example, the `get` method from the `requests` module is used to download the file, and the contents of the file are then written to another file using the `write` method.

    This approach provides more control over the downloading process than `urlretrieve` and is more modern, as `urlretrieve` is considered a legacy method.

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  2. Best Answer
    saforia Begginer
    2022-06-30T13:48:04+00:00Added an answer about 9 months ago

    Hello there,

    It looks like you’re trying to find an alternative command to use instead of urllib.request.urlretrieve. Well, one option you may want to consider is using the requests library. Requests is a widely used and popular Python library that allows you to easily send HTTP/1.1 requests using Python. It is built on top of urllib3, which is a powerful, thread-safe HTTP client that can handle complex requests.

    To use requests to download a file, you can simply call the get method with the URL where the file is located, and then save the response content to a file on your local system. Here’s an example:

    “`
    import requests

    url = ‘https://example.com/myfile.txt’
    response = requests.get(url)
    open(‘myfile.txt’, ‘wb’).write(response.content)
    “`

    In this example, we first make a request to ‘https://example.com/myfile.txt’ using the get method of the requests library. The response object we get back contains the content of the file that we want to download. We then write this content to a file on our local system using the open function.

    Another option you may want to look into is using the urllib.request.urlretrieve method from the urllib module. While you mentioned that you’re looking for an alternative to this method, it’s worth noting that this method is perfectly valid and widely used within Python for downloading files. Here’s an example of how you could use it:

    “`
    import urllib.request

    url = ‘https://example.com/myfile.txt’
    urllib.request.urlretrieve(url, ‘myfile.txt’)
    “`

    In this example, we first set the URL of the file we want to download, ‘https://example.com/myfile.txt’, and then pass that URL along with a destination file name of ‘myfile.txt’ to the urlretrieve method. This method will download the file and save it to our local system with the specified file name.

    I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

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  3. aldwerj Teacher
    2022-06-30T22:28:39+00:00Added an answer about 9 months ago

    One alternative option to urllib.request.urlretrieve method would be using the requests library in Python. This library provides a simple way to download a file from a URL. You can do this by using the get method and then writing the content to a file locally. Here’s an example:

    “`
    import requests

    url = ‘http://example.com/file.txt’
    response = requests.get(url)

    with open(‘file.txt’, ‘wb’) as file:
    file.write(response.content)
    “`

    In this code, we first import the requests library. Then, we define a variable called `url` that contains the URL of the file we want to download. We make a GET request to that URL using `requests.get(url)`. The `response` variable will contain the response from the server, including the content of the file we want to download.

    We then open a file with the name `’file.txt’` in binary mode for writing using the `open()` method and the `with` statement. We write the content of the response to the file using the `write()` method of the file object.

    Overall, this provides a cleaner and more simplistic way to download a file from a URL in Python.

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  4. nsarafoudis Teacher
    2022-06-30T23:32:54+00:00Added an answer about 9 months ago

    It is advisable to switch to using requests library when dealing with HTTP requests in Python. Requests is an easy-to-use and high-level HTTP library that makes sending and receiving HTTP requests much simpler. The syntax of Requests is easier to read and write compared to urllib2. Here is an example of how to download a file using requests library:

    “`
    import requests

    url = “https://example.com/file.zip”
    response = requests.get(url)
    open(“file.zip”, “wb”).write(response.content)
    “`

    In the above code, we first import the requests library, then we define the URL we want to download from. The `requests.get()` method sends a GET request to the specified URL and returns a response object. The `response.content` attribute contains the response payload as bytes. Finally, we open the file we want to save the downloaded content to in write-binary mode (`wb`) and write the response content to it.

    This method is easier to read, more concise and suitable for Python beginners. It also handles some low-level details automatically, such as HTTP sessions, cookies, and headers.

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  5. tsukishiro020 Begginer
    2022-06-30T04:28:23+00:00Added an answer about 9 months ago

    There are many libraries available in Python that can be used instead of `urllib.request.urlretrieve()` to download files from the internet. One such library is `requests`, which is a popular third-party library for making HTTP requests.

    To use `requests` to download a file, you first need to install the library by running `pip install requests` on your command prompt or terminal. Then, you can use the `get()` method of the requests library to download the contents of a URL.

    Here’s an example code snippet that shows how to download a file using `requests`:

    “`python
    import requests

    url = ‘http://example.com/file.txt’
    response = requests.get(url)

    with open(‘file.txt’, ‘wb’) as f:
    f.write(response.content)
    “`

    In this example, we first import the `requests` library. We then define the URL of the file we want to download and use the `get()` method of the `requests` library to download the contents of the URL. Finally, we open a file in write-binary mode and write the contents of the response to the file.

    The advantage of using `requests` over `urllib.request.urlretrieve()` is that `requests` is a more user-friendly and powerful library for making HTTP requests.

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