Python networking libraries for acquiring data

The vast majority of geospatial data sharing is accomplished via the Internet. And Python is well-equipped when it comes to networking libraries for almost any protocol. Automated data downloads are often an important step in automating a geospatial process. Data is typically retrieved from a website Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or a File Transfer Protocol (FTP ) server. And because geospatial data sets often contain multiple files, data is often distributed as ZIP files.

A nice feature of Python is its concept of a file-like object. Most Python libraries which read and write data use a standard set of methods which allow you to access data from all different types of resources as if you were writing a simple file on disk. The networking modules in the Python standard library use this convention as well. The benefit of this approach is it allows you to pass file-like objects to other libraries and methods which recognize the convention without...