Finding web host headers

[Harlin Seritt]

Is there any way to fetch a website's host/version headers using
Python?

Thanks,

Harlin

[Tim Chase]

> Is there any way to fetch a website's host/version headers using

Python?

import httplib
conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("docs.python.org")
conn.connect()
conn.request("HEAD", "/")
response = dict([(k.lower(), v) for k,v in conn.getresponse()])
conn.close()
server = response["server"]
print server

Apache/2.0.54 (Debian GNU/Linux) DAV/2 SVN/1.1.4 mod_python/3.1.3
Python/2.3.5 mod_ssl/2.0.54 OpenSSL/0.9.7e
I've found a bit of discrepancy with regards to the case of the
"server" portion, so the above code just normalizes it to
lowercase and then shoves it in a dictionary.

You can then do as you please with the contents of the "server"
variable.

It's theoretically possible that the server can return differing
headers based on the URL you request or its method. You'll have
to adjust the request() call for the method (GET/HEAD/POST, etc)
and for the resource you want (in this case, just "/")

-tkc

[Tim Chase]

>> Is there any way to fetch a website's host/version headers using

Python?

>>> import httplib
>>> conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("docs.python.org")
>>> conn.connect()
>>> conn.request("HEAD", "/")
>>> response = dict([(k.lower(), v) for k,v in conn.getresponse()])
>>> conn.close()
>>> server = response["server"]
>>> print server Apache/2.0.54 (Debian GNU/Linux) DAV/2 SVN/1.1.4 mod_python/3.1.3
Python/2.3.5 mod_ssl/2.0.54 OpenSSL/0.9.7e

Dang, I copied that over by hand and miscopied it with a big
error or two. It can also be cleaned up a bit, as I learned (the
getheader() call is case-insensitive, and the connect() call was
superfluous). Copying verbatim...

import httplib
conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("docs.python.org")
conn.request("HEAD", "/")
response = conn.getresponse()
conn.close()
server = response.getheader("server")
print server

Apache/2.0.54 (Debian GNU/Linux) DAV/2 SVN/1.1.4 mod_python/3.1.3
Python/2.3.5 mod_ssl/2.0.54 OpenSSL/0.9.7e

Sorry about the rubbish code the first time out the gate.

-tkc