作为一个Python菜鸟，之前一直懵懂于urllib和urllib2，以为2是1的升级版。今天看到老外写的一篇《Python: difference between urllib and urllib2》才明白其中的区别。
You might be intrigued by the existence of two separate URL modules in Python -urllib and urllib2. Even more intriguing: they are not alternatives for each other. So what is the difference between urllib and urllib2, and do we need them both?
你可能对于Python中两个独立存在的-urllib2和-urllib2感到好奇。更有趣的是：它们并不是可以相互代替的。那么这两个模块间的区别是什么，并且这两个我们都需要吗？
urllib and urllib2are both Python modules that do URL request related stuff but offer different functionalities. Their two most significant differences are listed below:
urllib 和urllib2都是接受URL请求的相关模块，但是提供了不同的功能。两个最显著的不同如下：
- urllib2 can accept a Request object to set the headers for a URL request,urllib accepts only a URL. That means, you cannot masquerade your User Agent string etc.
urllib2可以接受一个Request类的实例来设置URL请求的headers，urllib仅可以接受URL。这意味着，你不可以伪装你的User Agent字符串等。
- urllib provides the urlencode method which is used for the generation of GET query strings, urllib2 doesn't have such a function. This is one of the reasons why urllib is often used along with urllib2.
urllib提供urlencode方法用来GET查询字符串的产生，而urllib2没有。这是为何urllib常和urllib2一起使用的原因。
For other differences between urllib and urllib2 refer to their documentations, the links are given in the References section.
来源：oschina
链接：https://my.oschina.net/u/198467/blog/182509