"""
Some basic functionality for reading data from 
web pages
"""
# David Kauchak
# 11/8/2011

import urllib
import sys

def print_data(reader):
    """Print the data a line at a time from the iterable reader"""
    for line in reader:
        print line.strip()
    
def is_url(string):
    """See if this string represents a URL"""
    return string.startswith("http://")

def print_usage():
    """Print the usage of this program"""
    print "url_basics.py <filename or url>"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # check to see if the user called the program with the right number
    # of command-line arguments
    if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        print_usage()
    else:
        # get the argument the user called the program with
        name = sys.argv[1]
                
        if is_url(name):
            reader = urllib.urlopen(name)
        else:
            reader = open(name, "r")
        
        print_data(reader)