Networking in Python 3

There are several modules and libraries in Python 3 that can be used for networking tasks, including:

• Socket: This is a low-level module that provides access to the underlying networking functions in the operating system. It allows you to create and manipulate sockets, which are the endpoint of a connection between two computers.
• urllib: This is a module that provides functions for performing HTTP requests and parsing URLs. It allows you to send HTTP requests to a server and receive the response, as well as to parse and manipulate URLs.
• httplib: This is a module that provides functions for performing HTTP requests and handling responses. It allows you to send HTTP requests to a server and receive the response, as well as to handle various aspects of the HTTP protocol such as headers and status codes.
• Requests: This is a third-party library that provides a higher-level interface for performing HTTP requests and handling responses. It simplifies many common tasks such as making GET and POST requests, handling redirects, and parsing JSON data.

Here’s an example of how to send an HTTP GET request and print the result using the requests library:

import requests 
response = requests.get("http://www.example.com") 
print(response.text)

This will send an HTTP GET request to the URL “http://www.example.com” and print the response body as a string.

There are many other modules and libraries available in Python 3 for networking tasks, including those for working with specific protocols such as FTP, SMTP, and SSH. Python’s comprehensive standard library and large ecosystem of third-party libraries make it a powerful tool for a wide range of networking tasks.

Python supports two tiers of network service access. At a base level, you can access the underlying operating system’s fundamental socket functionality, which lets you to construct clients and servers for both connection-oriented and connectionless protocols.

Python also has libraries that offer higher-level access to certain application-level network protocols like FTP and HTTP.

This chapter explains the most well-known concept in networking: socket programming.