How do I download a zip file in python using urllib2?

Here’s how I’d deal with the url building and downloading. I’m making sure to name the file as the basename of the url (the last bit after the trailing slash) and I’m also using the with clause for opening the file to write to. This uses a ContextManager which is nice because it will close that file when the block exits. In addition, I use a template to build the string for the url. urlopen doesn’t need a request object, just a string.

import os
from urllib2 import urlopen, URLError, HTTPError


def dlfile(url):
    # Open the url
    try:
        f = urlopen(url)
        print "downloading " + url

        # Open our local file for writing
        with open(os.path.basename(url), "wb") as local_file:
            local_file.write(f.read())

    #handle errors
    except HTTPError, e:
        print "HTTP Error:", e.code, url
    except URLError, e:
        print "URL Error:", e.reason, url


def main():
    # Iterate over image ranges
    for index in range(150, 151):
        url = ("http://www.archive.org/download/"
               "Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_%d/"
               "Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_%d_64kb_mp3.zip" %
               (index, index))
        dlfile(url)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()