Download web page in Python with authentication

gistfile1.py

import urllib2, urllib


"""
secret = json.load(open(os.path.expanduser('~/.secret')))

opener = authenticate('http://mixergy.com/wp-login.php',
                       secret['mixergy']['username'],
                       mixergy['password'])

html = get_page('http://mixergy.com/ali-brown-info-business/', opener)
"""


def authenticate(login_url, username, password, login_string='log', password_string='pwd'):
    """The variables login_string and password_string are the names
    used in the input form. In wordpress they are usually equal to
    'log' and 'pwd' respectivelly.
    """

    opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor())
    opener.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0')]
    urllib2.install_opener(opener)
    p = urllib.urlencode({login_string: username, password_string: password})
    f = opener.open(login_url,  p)
    f.read()
    f.close()
    return opener


def get_page(page, opener):
    return opener.open(page).read()