Adding an HTTP method to urllib2.Request.

methodreq.py

import urllib2

class MethodRequest(urllib2.Request):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if 'method' in kwargs:
            self._method = kwargs['method']
            del kwargs['method']
        else:
            self._method = None
        return urllib2.Request.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)

    def get_method(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if self._method is not None:
            return self._method
        return urllib2.Request.get_method(self, *args, **kwargs)

This addresses a small deficiency in urllib2: you can't specify an HTTP method to use, you can only say whether the request is a GET (by not specifying any data to send) or a POST (by specifying data). You can use this just like urllib2.Request, but you can also instantiate it with:

req = MethodRequest(url, method='PUT')

Now, when the actual request is made, the PUT HTTP method will be used, regardless of whether any data is supplied or not.

Thanks, works a charm!