Create a BeautifulSoup by reading in a webpage.

soupFromURL.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# create a BeautifulSoup by reading in a webpage
# Current varsion at https://gist.github.com/cclauss/6648735
# usage:
# from soupFromURL import soupFromURL
# theSoup = soupFromURL('http://www.python.org')

import bs4
useRequests = False  # "Python HTTP: When in doubt, or when
try:                 #  not in doubt, use Requests. Beautiful,
    import requests  #  simple, Pythonic." -- Kenny Meyers
    useRequests = True
except:
    from contextlib import closing
    from urllib2 import urlopen

def soupFromURL(inURL):
    if useRequests:
        return bs4.BeautifulSoup(requests.get(inURL).text)
    else:
        with closing(urlopen(inURL)) as webPageSource:
            #print('Successfully opened URL: ' + inURL)
            return bs4.BeautifulSoup(webPageSource.read())

if __name__ == '__main__':
    theURL = 'http://www.python.org'
    theSoup = soupFromURL(theURL)
    print(theSoup.prettify())

Updated to use Requests: HTTP for Humans if that module is available.