Python and urllib
Solution 1
Use urllib2.urlopen()
for the zip file data and directory listing.
To process zip files with the zipfile
module, you can write them to a disk file which is then passed to the zipfile.ZipFile
constructor.
Retrieving the data is straightforward using read()
on the file-like object returned
by urllib2.urlopen()
.
Fetching directories:
>>> files = urllib2.urlopen('ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2008/01_ALABAMA/').read().splitlines()
>>> for l in files[:4]: print l
...
drwxrwsr-x 2 0 4009 4096 Nov 26 2008 01001_Autauga_County
drwxrwsr-x 2 0 4009 4096 Nov 26 2008 01003_Baldwin_County
drwxrwsr-x 2 0 4009 4096 Nov 26 2008 01005_Barbour_County
drwxrwsr-x 2 0 4009 4096 Nov 26 2008 01007_Bibb_County
>>>
Or, splitting for directory names:
>>> for l in files[:4]: print l.split()[-1]
...
01001_Autauga_County
01003_Baldwin_County
01005_Barbour_County
01007_Bibb_County
Solution 2
import os,urllib2
out=os.path.join("/tmp","test.zip")
url="ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2008/01_ALABAMA/01001_Autauga_County/tl_2008_01001_edges.zip"
page=urllib2.urlopen(url)
open(out,"wb").write(page.read())
Solution 3
Per the docs, urlretrieve
puts the file to disk and returns a tuple (filename, headers)
. So the file is already saved when urlretrieve
returns.
You can open and read the ZIP file you've retrieved with the zipfile module of the standard library. glob
does not work inside zipfiles, only on normal filesystem directories.
djq
Currently working for a large tech company in Dublin. Previously, a co-founder of a technology startup; there I worked with a small team using Python, Django, Django-Rest-Framework, Pandas (and more!). I've a background in urban analysis (geospatial data), stats (R) and data visualization (ggplot2, D3) Excited about how technology can be used for social good.
Updated on June 04, 2022Comments
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djq almost 2 years
I'm trying to download a zip file ("tl_2008_01001_edges.zip") from an ftp census site using urllib. What form is the zip file in when I get it and how do I save it?
I'm fairly new to Python and don't understand how urllib works.
This is my attempt:
import urllib, sys zip_file = urllib.urlretrieve("ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2008/01_ALABAMA/Autauga_County/", "tl_2008_01001_edges.zip")
If I know the list of ftp folders (or counties in this case), can I run through the ftp site list using the glob function?
Thanks.