Check URL --> Simply?

[Peter Hansen]

Alex wrote:
> 
> import urllib
> 
> def checkURL(url):
>     try: urllib.urlopen(url)
>     except IOError: return 0
>     return 1
>
> if __name__ == '__main__':
>     assert checkURL('http://slashdot.org')
>     assert not checkURL('http://foo')

What does this do when a page doesn't really exist
but the server catches the 404 error and ends up serving
up a "this page doesn't exist page"?  I think that
might make almost any URL on modern servers look like
it actually exists, which may not be quite what the
OP really wanted.  For example:

>>> checkURL('http://www.python.org/missingpage')
1

(I realize the definition of "does URL exist" is
really the problem here, not the code.)

-- 
----------------------
Peter Hansen, P.Eng.
peter at engcorp.com