How to get the URL of a redirect with Python

Question

In Python, I'm using urllib2 to open a url. This url redirects to another url, which redirects to yet another url.

I wish to print out the url after each redirect.

For example

-> = redirects to

A -> B -> C -> D

I want to print the URL of B, C and D (A is already known because it's the start URL).

why not use the requests module, `actualURL = requests.head(passedurl, timeout=100.0 , headers={'Accept-Encoding': 'identity'}).headers.get('location', passedurl)` ? — Ciasto piekarz, Jul 26 '14 at 17:47

score 48 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 04 '11 at 20:27

48

You can easily get D by just asking for the current URL.

req = urllib2.Request(starturl, datagen, headers)
res = urllib2.urlopen(req)
finalurl = res.geturl()

To deal with the intermediate redirects you'll probably need to build your own opener, using HTTPRedirectHandler that records the redirects.

answered Feb 04 '11 at 20:27

chmullig

3

It solves the more common question of "what is the url I arrived to"? – Ángel Sep 26 '14 at 09:13
3

here is a similar answer using `requests`: http://stackoverflow.com/a/20475712/309483 – Janus Troelsen Nov 10 '15 at 11:23

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 16 '12 at 07:53

10

Probably the best way is to subclass urllib2.HTTPRedirectHandler. Dive Into Python's chapter on redirects may be helpful.

edited Jan 16 '12 at 07:53

Akshit Khurana

answered Feb 04 '11 at 20:29

Wooble

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 29 '20 at 14:19

4

For Python 3, the solution with urllib is much simpler:

import urllib


def resolve(url):
    return urllib.request.urlopen(url).geturl()

answered Mar 29 '20 at 14:19

jadelord

2

This is the answer I was looking for! However, is this really a full solution? The OP was looking for intermediate redirect URLs `B` and `C` as well, not just the final destination `D`. – Micah Lindstrom Apr 10 '20 at 07:50

3 Answers3