More on Urllib, and Urllib2

[Alex Bryan]

Okay, so I am having issues figuring anything out about this and have
read the "missing manual" about it so please don't send me that link
again. To put it simply I want to be able to input a word and get the
definition from dictionary.com. Now I found a work-around for
searching for the word, I just make it in the actual address. For
example I want to search for cheese, I can just do a:

urllib2.urlopen("http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cheese")

However, the actual definition is in javascript on the page. I used
firebug to see it, and the first def, looks like this:

<table class="luna-Ent">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="dn" valign="top">1.</td>
<td valign="top">the curd of milk separated from the whey and prepared
in many ways as a food. </td>

the problem being that if I use code like this to get the html of that
page in python:

response = urllib2.urlopen("the webiste....")
html = response.read()
print html

I get the html source of the page, but no table with my definitions.
So what can I do? Also, is there a book or a better tutorial or
explanation of this urllib2, and urllib? If so, PLEASE let me know
about it; I will be eternally grateful.

[CracKPod]

On 28 Jun., 01:42, Alex Bryan <[e-mail]:

Okay, so I am having issues figuring anything out about this and have *
read the "missing manual" about it so please don't send me that link *
again. To put it simply I want to be able to input a word and get the *
definition from dictionary.com. Now I found a work-around for *
searching for the word, I just make it in the actual address. For *
example I want to search for cheese, I can just do a:

urllib2.urlopen("http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cheese")

However, the actual definition is in javascript on the page. I used *
firebug to see it, and the first def, looks like this:

<table class="luna-Ent">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="dn" valign="top">1.</td>
<td valign="top">the curd of milk separated from the whey and prepared *
in many ways as a food. </td>

the problem being that if I use code like this to get the html of that *
page in python:

response = urllib2.urlopen("the webiste....")
html = response.read()
print html

I get the html source of the page, but no table with my definitions. *
So what can I do? Also, is there a book or a better tutorial or *
explanation of this urllib2, and urllib? If so, PLEASE let me know *
about it; I will be eternally grateful.

It would probably be a good idea to take a look at mechanize:
http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/mechanize/
and at BeautifulSoup: http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/

Greetz,
CracKPod