CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonhttp
yasar
yasar

Reputation: 13738

seek in http connection when downloading with python

I have actually two questions in one. Firstly, does http protocol allows seeking. If the wording is incorrect, what I mean is this: for example, there is file accessible through http request in some server. File's size is 2 gb. Can I retrieve only last 1 gb of this file using http. If this can be done, how to do it in Python. I am asking this, because I am considering writing a Python script to download same file with paralel connections, and combining the outcome.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 941

Answers (2)

Ali Khalid
Ali Khalid

Reputation: 1345

The http protocol defines a way for a client to request part of the resource see http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/

Since all HTTP entities are represented in HTTP messages as sequences of bytes, the concept of a byte range is meaningful for any HTTP entity. (However, not all clients and servers need to support byte- range operations.)

Therefore in theory, you could specify a range header to specify which part of the file you want, however the server might just ignore the request. Therefore you need to configure the server to supports byte range.

Sorry cant provide you with a code sample, I have never worked in python but this information should be sufficient to get you started. If you need further help, please ask.

Upvotes: 1

millimoose
millimoose

Reputation: 39950

HTTP lets you request a "range" of bytes of a resource, this is specified in the HTTP/1.1. RFC. Not every server and not every resource might support range retrieval and may ignore the headers. The answer to this question has some example code you could look at.

Upvotes: 0

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