Python script that notifies me when a update is made to a website.

Question

I need to make a script that will notify me when a change is made to a website. I am not sure about the best way to go about this and I don't know what python has that will be useful. Any push in the right direction would be helpful.

Answer 1

It all depends on what you define as an update to a website.

The simplest solution would be to use urllib2 to get the contents of the given website, storing it in a variable then quering the website again for contents and comparing them.

Have that running in an infinite loop and you are set.

Answer 2

You may use the last-modified date of the remote page :

import urllib
u = urllib.urlopen("http://www.google.com")
u.info().get("last-modified")