^^&&^^

Edit File: robotparser.txt

:mod:`robotparser` ---  Parser for robots.txt
=============================================

.. module:: robotparser
   :synopsis: Loads a robots.txt file and answers questions about
              fetchability of other URLs.
.. sectionauthor:: Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com>

.. index::
   single: WWW
   single: World Wide Web
   single: URL
   single: robots.txt

.. note::
   The :mod:`robotparser` module has been renamed :mod:`urllib.robotparser` in
   Python 3.
   The :term:`2to3` tool will automatically adapt imports when converting
   your sources to Python 3.

This module provides a single class, :class:`RobotFileParser`, which answers
questions about whether or not a particular user agent can fetch a URL on the
Web site that published the :file:`robots.txt` file.  For more details on the
structure of :file:`robots.txt` files, see http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html.

.. class:: RobotFileParser(url='')

This class provides methods to read, parse and answer questions about the
   :file:`robots.txt` file at *url*.

.. method:: set_url(url)

Sets the URL referring to a :file:`robots.txt` file.

.. method:: read()

Reads the :file:`robots.txt` URL and feeds it to the parser.

.. method:: parse(lines)

Parses the lines argument.

.. method:: can_fetch(useragent, url)

Returns ``True`` if the *useragent* is allowed to fetch the *url*
      according to the rules contained in the parsed :file:`robots.txt`
      file.

.. method:: mtime()

Returns the time the ``robots.txt`` file was last fetched.  This is
      useful for long-running web spiders that need to check for new
      ``robots.txt`` files periodically.

.. method:: modified()

Sets the time the ``robots.txt`` file was last fetched to the current
      time.

The following example demonstrates basic use of the RobotFileParser class. ::

>>> import robotparser
   >>> rp = robotparser.RobotFileParser()
   >>> rp.set_url("http://www.musi-cal.com/robots.txt")
   >>> rp.read()
   >>> rp.can_fetch("*", "http://www.musi-cal.com/cgi-bin/search?city=San+Francisco")
   False
   >>> rp.can_fetch("*", "http://www.musi-cal.com/")
   True