Downloading a picture via urllib and python

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

👻 Check our latest review to choose the best laptop for Machine Learning engineers and Deep learning tasks!

So I"m trying to make a Python script that downloads webcomics and puts them in a folder on my desktop. I"ve found a few similar programs on here that do something similar, but nothing quite like what I need. The one that I found most similar is right here (http://bytes.com/topic/python/answers/850927-problem-using-urllib-download-images). I tried using this code:

>>> import urllib
>>> image = urllib.URLopener()
>>> image.retrieve("http://www.gunnerkrigg.com//comics/00000001.jpg";"00000001.jpg")
("00000001.jpg", <httplib.HTTPMessage instance at 0x1457a80>)

I then searched my computer for a file "00000001.jpg", but all I found was the cached picture of it. I"m not even sure it saved the file to my computer. Once I understand how to get the file downloaded, I think I know how to handle the rest. Essentially just use a for loop and split the string at the "00000000"."jpg" and increment the "00000000" up to the largest number, which I would have to somehow determine. Any reccomendations on the best way to do this or how to download the file correctly?

Thanks!

EDIT 6/15/10

Here is the completed script, it saves the files to any directory you choose. For some odd reason, the files weren"t downloading and they just did. Any suggestions on how to clean it up would be much appreciated. I"m currently working out how to find out many comics exist on the site so I can get just the latest one, rather than having the program quit after a certain number of exceptions are raised.

import urllib
import os

comicCounter=len(os.listdir("/file"))+1  # reads the number of files in the folder to start downloading at the next comic
errorCount=0

def download_comic(url,comicName):
    """
    download a comic in the form of

    url = http://www.example.com
    comicName = "00000000.jpg"
    """
    image=urllib.URLopener()
    image.retrieve(url,comicName)  # download comicName at URL

while comicCounter <= 1000:  # not the most elegant solution
    os.chdir("/file")  # set where files download to
        try:
        if comicCounter < 10:  # needed to break into 10^n segments because comic names are a set of zeros followed by a number
            comicNumber=str("0000000"+str(comicCounter))  # string containing the eight digit comic number
            comicName=str(comicNumber+".jpg")  # string containing the file name
            url=str("http://www.gunnerkrigg.com//comics/"+comicName)  # creates the URL for the comic
            comicCounter+=1  # increments the comic counter to go to the next comic, must be before the download in case the download raises an exception
            download_comic(url,comicName)  # uses the function defined above to download the comic
            print url
        if 10 <= comicCounter < 100:
            comicNumber=str("000000"+str(comicCounter))
            comicName=str(comicNumber+".jpg")
            url=str("http://www.gunnerkrigg.com//comics/"+comicName)
            comicCounter+=1
            download_comic(url,comicName)
            print url
        if 100 <= comicCounter < 1000:
            comicNumber=str("00000"+str(comicCounter))
            comicName=str(comicNumber+".jpg")
            url=str("http://www.gunnerkrigg.com//comics/"+comicName)
            comicCounter+=1
            download_comic(url,comicName)
            print url
        else:  # quit the program if any number outside this range shows up
            quit
    except IOError:  # urllib raises an IOError for a 404 error, when the comic doesn"t exist
        errorCount+=1  # add one to the error count
        if errorCount>3:  # if more than three errors occur during downloading, quit the program
            break
        else:
            print str("comic"+ " " + str(comicCounter) + " " + "does not exist")  # otherwise say that the certain comic number doesn"t exist
print "all comics are up to date"  # prints if all comics are downloaded

👻 Read also: what is the best laptop for engineering students?

We hope this article has helped you to resolve the problem. Apart from Downloading a picture via urllib and python, check other code Python module-related topics.

Want to excel in Python? See our review of the best Python online courses 2023. If you are interested in Data Science, check also how to learn programming in R.

By the way, this material is also available in other languages:



Oliver Lehnman

Milan | 2023-03-26

string Python module is always a bit confusing 😭 Downloading a picture via urllib and python is not the only problem I encountered. I just hope that will not emerge anymore

Walter OConnell

Milan | 2023-03-26

File handling is always a bit confusing 😭 Downloading a picture via urllib and python is not the only problem I encountered. I just hope that will not emerge anymore

Olivia Porretti

Munchen | 2023-03-26

zeros is always a bit confusing 😭 Downloading a picture via urllib and python is not the only problem I encountered. I just hope that will not emerge anymore

Shop

Gifts for programmers

Learn programming in R: courses

$FREE
Gifts for programmers

Best Python online courses for 2022

$FREE
Gifts for programmers

Best laptop for Fortnite

$399+
Gifts for programmers

Best laptop for Excel

$
Gifts for programmers

Best laptop for Solidworks

$399+
Gifts for programmers

Best laptop for Roblox

$399+
Gifts for programmers

Best computer for crypto mining

$499+
Gifts for programmers

Best laptop for Sims 4

$

Latest questions

PythonStackOverflow

Common xlabel/ylabel for matplotlib subplots

1947 answers

PythonStackOverflow

Check if one list is a subset of another in Python

1173 answers

PythonStackOverflow

How to specify multiple return types using type-hints

1002 answers

PythonStackOverflow

Printing words vertically in Python

909 answers

PythonStackOverflow

Python Extract words from a given string

798 answers

PythonStackOverflow

Why do I get "Pickle - EOFError: Ran out of input" reading an empty file?

606 answers

PythonStackOverflow

Python os.path.join () method

384 answers

PythonStackOverflow

Flake8: Ignore specific warning for entire file

360 answers

News


Wiki

Python | How to copy data from one Excel sheet to another

Common xlabel/ylabel for matplotlib subplots

Check if one list is a subset of another in Python

How to specify multiple return types using type-hints

Printing words vertically in Python

Python Extract words from a given string

Cyclic redundancy check in Python

Finding mean, median, mode in Python without libraries

Python add suffix / add prefix to strings in a list

Why do I get "Pickle - EOFError: Ran out of input" reading an empty file?

Python - Move item to the end of the list

Python - Print list vertically