[Tutor] Starting a browser instance and passing a parameter to it.

[Don Taylor]

I am trying to start a browser from within a Python program and I want 
it to show a local file on my system and I want to pass a parameter to 
that browser page that will be picked up by some Javascript embedded in 
the page.

I have this code:

import webbrowser
webbrowser.open("file:///D:/EclipseWS/XML-RPCTesting/webbrowser.htm?open=8001")

when executed it does bring up the web-page ok, but the parameter 
(?open=8001) is lost.  If I try the same thing with an http url then it 
works as expected.  However, I do not want to run a web-server on my 
machine.

Is there any way I can get a browser to display a web-page from a 
file-based url and pass a parameter to the code running in that page?

FWIW.  I am trying to use a web page as the GUI for a Python program. 
The Python program is started in the usual way and it initiates its web 
page GUI.  The Javascript in the web page then communicates with the 
Python program using XML-RPC.  The parameter I need to pass is the port 
number to be used for this communication.

I am currently using WinXP/Firefox but I want this to work on all 
platforms and browser combos.

TIA.


Don.