Resolving bit.ly urls to their original using bit.ly API

resolve_bitly_urls.py

# resolving urls shortened with Bit.ly back to their original form
# Bit.ly has a beautiful, simple API for this. And the Bitly API wrapper is simple to use.
# I did this for analysing which domains in a large list were the most popular.


import bitly #bitly API wrapper
import time
import random

fr="C:\\somedir\\bitlyurls.txt"


fw="C:\\somedir\\bitlys_RESOLVED.txt"

api=bitly.Api(login='myBitlyUname', apikey='myBitlyApiKey')

#populate a list with bitly urls
fileread=open(fr,'r')
bitlys=fileread.readlines()
fileread.close()

#for each bitly in list, resolve it via api
for x in range(len(bitlys)):
    thisbitly=bitlys[x][:-1]

    try:
        long_url=api.expand(thisbitly)
        filewrite=open(fw,'a')
        filewrite.write(long_url+"\n")
        filewrite.close()
        time.sleep(random.randint(4,10)) #be kind to their servers
        
        
    except:
        filewrite=open(fw,'a')
        filewrite.write("***COULD NOT RESOLVE***\n")
        filewrite.close
        print "Could not resolve Pos. ",x, " ",bitlys[x]
        time.sleep(random.randint(4,10))