原文链接：http://www.cnblogs.com/yuxc/
作为一个Python菜鸟，之前一直懵懂于urllib和urllib2，以为2是1的升级版。今天看到老外写的一篇《Python: difference between urllib and urllib2》才明白其中的区别。
You might be intrigued by the existence of two separate URL modules in Python -urllib and urllib2. Even more intriguing: they are not alternatives for each other. So what is the difference between urllib and urllib2, and do we need them both?
你可能对于Python中两个独立存在的-urllib2和-urllib2感到好奇。更有趣的是：它们并不是可以相互代替的。那么这两个模块间的区别是什么，并且这两个我们都需要吗？
urllib and urllib2are both Python modules that do URL request related stuff but offer different functionalities. Their two most significant differences are listed below:
urllib 和urllib2都是接受URL请求的相关模块，但是提供了不同的功能。两个最显著的不同如下：
urllib2can accept aRequestobject to set the headers for a URL request,urllibaccepts only a URL. That means, you cannot masquerade your User Agent string etc.urllib2可以接受一个Request类的实例来设置URL请求的headers，urllib仅可以接受URL。这意味着，你不可以伪装你的User Agent字符串等。
urllibprovides theurlencodemethod which is used for the generation of GET query strings,urllib2doesn't have such a function. This is one of the reasons whyurllibis often used along withurllib2.urllib提供urlencode方法用来GET查询字符串的产生，而urllib2没有。这是为何urllib常和urllib2一起使用的原因。
For other differences between urllib and urllib2 refer to their documentations, the links are given in the References section.
Tip: if you are planning to do HTTP stuff only, check out httplib2, it is much better than httplib or urllib or urllib2.
提示：如果你仅做HTTP相关的，看一下httplib2，比其他几个模块好用。
相关资料
这里还有个类似的问答：urllib urllib2 what is the difference ?
*上也有：Should I use urllib or urllib2?
Python Docs
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