How Do You Send HEAD HTTP Requests in Python 2?

Sending HEAD HTTP Requests in Python 2

In web development, often it is necessary to retrieve the headers of a URL without downloading the content itself. This technique is useful for determining the MIME type of a resource, verifying the existence of a file, or handling redirections. In Python 2, sending HEAD requests is straightforward using the urllib2 module.

To send a HEAD request, follow these steps:

1. Import the urllib2 module:

<code class="python">import urllib2</code>

2. Define a custom HTTP request class that overrides the request method with "HEAD":

<code class="python">class HeadRequest(urllib2.Request):
    def get_method(self):
        return "HEAD"</code>

3. Create an HTTP request object using the custom request class:

<code class="python">request = HeadRequest("http://somedomain/foo/")</code>

4. Open the request:

<code class="python">response = urllib2.urlopen(request)</code>

5. Access the headers using response.info():

<code class="python">headers = response.info()</code>

6. If there was a redirection, you can retrieve the new URL using response.geturl():

<code class="python">redirected_url = response.geturl()</code>

By following these steps, you can easily send HEAD HTTP requests in Python 2 to obtain the headers of web resources without downloading their content.

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