Python: Get URL path sections

Question

How do I get specific path sections from a url? For example, I want a function which operates on this:

http://www.mydomain.com/hithere?image=2934

and returns "hithere"

or operates on this:

http://www.mydomain.com/hithere/something/else

and returns the same thing ("hithere")

I know this will probably use urllib or urllib2 but I can't figure out from the docs how to get only a section of the path.

Answer 1

Extract the path component of the URL with urlparse:

>>> import urlparse
>>> path = urlparse.urlparse('http://www.example.com/hithere/something/else').path
>>> path
'/hithere/something/else'

Split the path into components with os.path.split:

>>> import os.path
>>> os.path.split(path)
('/hithere/something', 'else')

The dirname and basename functions give you the two pieces of the split; perhaps use dirname in a while loop:

>>> while os.path.dirname(path) != '/':
...     path = os.path.dirname(path)
... 
>>> path
'/hithere'