gistfile1.txt

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import re
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from distutils.version import LooseVersion

our_version = LooseVersion("1.04")
url = "http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bc/"
html_content = requests.get(url).text

soup = BeautifulSoup(html_content)

print("Our version: {}".format(our_version))

new_version = None
for tag in soup.find_all("a"):
    match = re.match("bc-(?P<version>([A-Za-z0-9\.]+)).tar.(.*)",  tag['href'])
    if match:
        other_version = LooseVersion(match.group("version"))
        if other_version > our_version and (not new_version or other_version > new_version):
            new_version = other_version

if not new_version:
    print("Up to date!")
else:
    print("New upstream release: {0}".format(other_version))