Python in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Chapter 19. Client-Side Network Protocol Modules

A program can work on the Internet as a client (a program that accesses resources) or as a server (a program that makes services available). Both kinds of programs deal with protocol issues, such as how to access and communicate data, and with data-formatting issues. For order and clarity, the Python library deals with these issues in several different modules. This book covers these topics in several chapters. This chapter deals with the modules in the Python library that support protocol issues of client programs. Chapter 20 deals with lower-level modules such as socket, used in both client and server programs, and modules that support protocol issues in server programs. Data-format issues are covered in Chapter 22, Chapter 23, and Chapter 24. Chapter 21 deals specifically with server-side programs that produce web pages, either standalone or in cooperation with existing web servers such as Apache or IIS.

Data access can often be achieved most simply through Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). Python supports URLs with modules urlparse, urllib, and urllib2. For rarer cases, such as when you need fine-grained control of data access protocols normally accessed via URLs, Python supplies modules httplib and ftplib. Protocols for which URLs are often insufficient include mail (modules poplib and smtplib), Network News (module nntplib), and Telnet (module telnetlib). Python also supports the XML-RPC protocol for distributed computing with ...