Python has a number of core modules designed to deal with interacting with the web. Python can act as a web client, pulling down web resources and POSTing form results. Python has support for SSL connections in a reasonably transparent fashion. CGI scripts are easy to write in Python, and there is also an Apache module for running Python scripts within the webserver itself.
urllib (Section 42.5) provides basic functions for opening and retrieving web resources via their URLs.
urllib2 (Section 42.6) provides an extended, extensible interface for accessing web resources.
htmllib and HTMLParser (Section 42.7) provide the ability to parse HTML.
cgi (Section 42.8) provides functions for writing CGI scripts.
mod_python (Section 42.9) is an Apache module for running Python within the Apache webserver, rather than seperately as with CGI scripts.
-- DJPH
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