In the second example for urlparse: http://docs.python.org/3.4/library/urllib.parse.html?highlight=urlparse

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urlparse('www.cwi.nl/%7Eguido/Python.html') ParseResult(scheme='', netloc='', path='www.cwi.nl:80/%7Eguido/Python.html', params='', query='', fragment='')

I think the "path=" component is wrong. ":80" shouldn't be there. Here is what happens in 2.7: In [2]: urlparse('www.cwi.nl/%7Eguido/Python.html') Out[2]: ParseResult(scheme='', netloc='', path='www.cwi.nl/%7Eguido/Python.html', params='', query='', fragment='')