How to Use Python Wget to Download Files with a Progress Bar
Downloading files from the internet is a common task for many Python programmers. Whether you need to download images, videos, audio files, or any other type of data, you want to do it efficiently and reliably. One way to achieve this is by using the wget module in Python.
Wget is a command-line tool that can download files from any URL. It supports various protocols, such as HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and SFTP. It can also handle redirects, cookies, authentication, and proxies. Wget is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
python wget download bar
But what if you want to use wget in your Python code? And what if you want to show a progress bar while downloading files? A progress bar is a graphical indicator that shows how much of a task has been completed. It can help you monitor the download speed, size, and time. It can also improve the user experience by providing feedback and reducing uncertainty.
In this article, you will learn how to use Python wget to download files with a progress bar. You will also learn how to install wget for different operating systems, how to customize the progress bar, and how to use other libraries for alternative progress bars.
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Installing Python Wget
Before you can use wget in your Python code, you need to install it on your system. Here are the steps for installing wget for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
Windows
Download wget either for for Windows.
Open File Explorer and find the wget.exe file you downloaded, then copy and paste it to the C:\Windows\System32 directory to add wget.exe to the PATH environment variable.
Open a command prompt and type wget --version to verify that wget is installed correctly.
Linux
Open a terminal and type sudo apt-get install wget to install wget using the apt package manager. You may need to enter your password.
Type wget --version to verify that wget is installed correctly.
Mac OS
Open a terminal and type brew install wget to install wget using the Homebrew package manager. You may need to install Homebrew first if you don't have it.
Type wget --version to verify that wget is installed correctly.
Once you have installed wget on your system, you can import it in your Python code using import wget.
Downloading Files with Python Wget
To download files with Python wget, you can use the wget.download() function. This function takes a URL as an argument and returns the file name of the downloaded file. For example:
# Import wget module import wget # Download an image from a URL url = " file_name = wget.download(url) # Print the file name print(file_name)
This code will download the Python logo from Wikipedia and save it as 1200px-Python.svg.png in the current working directory. You can also specify the output file name and location by using the out parameter. For example:
# Download an image from a URL and save it as python_logo.png in the Downloads folder url = " file_name = wget.download(url, out="/Downloads/python_logo.png") # Print the file name print(file_name)
By default, wget.download() will show a progress bar on the terminal while downloading the file. The progress bar will display the percentage of completion, the download speed, the file size, and the estimated time remaining. For example:
100% [........................................................................] 76301 / 76301 '1200px-Python.svg.png'
You can customize the appearance and behavior of the progress bar by using the bar parameter. The bar parameter takes a callable object that returns a string to be printed on the terminal. The callable object can take four arguments: current (the number of bytes downloaded so far), total (the total number of bytes to be downloaded), width (the width of the terminal), and suffix (a string to be appended at the end of the bar). For example:
# Define a custom progress bar function def custom_bar(current, total, width=80, suffix=''): # Calculate the percentage of completion percent = (current / total) * 100 # Format the percentage as a two-digit number percent = ":.2f".format(percent) # Calculate the number of equal signs to fill the bar fill = int(width * current / total) # Create the bar string with brackets, equal signs, spaces, and percentage bar = "[] %".format("=" * fill, " " * (width - fill), percent) # Return the bar string with the suffix return bar + suffix # Download an image from a URL and use the custom progress bar function url = " file_name = wget.download(url, bar=custom_bar) # Print the file name print(file_name)
This code will produce a progress bar like this:
[========================================================================] 100.00% '1200px-Python.svg.png' Using Other Libraries for Progress Bars
Python wget is not the only library that can provide progress bars for downloading files. There are other libraries that can offer different features and styles of progress bars. Two of them are clint and tqdm.
Clint
Clint is a library that provides various tools for command-line interfaces, such as colored output, spinners, tables, and progress bars. To use clint for downloading files with progress bars, you need to install it using pip install clint and import it in your Python code using from clint.textui import progress. Then, you can use the progress.bar() function as a context manager to wrap an iterable object that represents the file chunks to be downloaded. For example:
# Import requests and clint modules import requests from clint.textui import progress # Define the URL and the output file name url = " file_name = "python_logo_clint.png" # Send a GET request to the URL and get the response object response = requests.get(url, stream=True) # Get the total size of the file in bytes total_size = int(response.headers.get("content-length")) # Open the output file in binary mode with open(file_name, "wb") as file: # Use progress.bar() as a context manager to wrap the response.iter_content() iterable with progress.bar(response.iter_content(chunk_size=1024), expected_size=(total_size/1024) + 1) as chunks: # Iterate over the chunks and write them to the file for chunk in chunks: file.write(chunk) # Print the file name print(file_name)
This code will produce a progress bar like this:
74/74 'python_logo_clint.png'
Tqdm
Tqdm is a library that provides fast and extensible progress bars for loops and iterables. It supports nested loops, multiple threads, GUIs, and notebooks. To use tqdm for downloading files with progress bars, you need to install it using pip install tqdm and import it in your Python code using from tqdm import tqdm. Then, you can use the tqdm() function as a wrapper for an iterable object that represents the file chunks to be downloaded. You can also pass some optional parameters to customize the progress bar, such as desc (a prefix for the bar), unit (a unit of measurement for the bar), and unit_scale (a flag to enable automatic scaling of units). For example:
# Import requests and tqdm modules import requests from tqdm import tqdm # Define the URL and the output file name url = " file_name = "python_logo_tqdm.png" # Send a GET request to the URL and get the response object response = requests.get(url, stream=True) # Get the total size of the file in bytes total_size = int(response.headers.get("content-length")) # Open the output file in binary mode with open(file_name, "wb") as file: # Use tqdm() as a wrapper for the response.iter_content() iterable # Pass some optional parameters to customize the progress bar for chunk in tqdm(response.iter_content(chunk_size=1024), desc="Downloading", unit="B", unit_scale=True, total=total_size): # Write each chunk to the file file.write(chunk) # Print the file name print(file_name)
This code will produce a progress bar like this:
Downloading: 100% 74.5k/74.5k [00:00
Conclusion
In this article, you learned how to use Python wget to download files with a progress bar. You also learned how to install wget for different operating systems, how to customize the progress bar, and how to use other libraries for alternative progress bars.
Here are some tips and best practices for using wget and progress bars in Python:
Always check the URL before downloading files. Make sure it is valid, secure, and trustworthy.
Always handle exceptions when downloading files. Use try-except blocks to catch errors such as connection issues, invalid URLs, or permission errors.
Always close the file after writing to it. Use the with statement to ensure that the file is automatically closed when the download is complete.
Always test your code with different URLs and file types. Make sure your code can handle different scenarios and edge cases.
Always compare the features and performance of different libraries for progress bars. Choose the one that suits your needs and preferences.
We hope you enjoyed this article and learned something new. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to leave a comment below. Happy coding!
FAQs
What is the difference between wget and requests?
Wget and requests are both Python modules that can download files from the internet. However, they have some differences in their features and usage. Wget is a wrapper for the wget command-line tool, which means it inherits its functionality and options. Requests is a more modern and high-level library that provides a simple and elegant interface for making HTTP requests. Wget is more suitable for downloading large files or multiple files at once, while requests is more suitable for interacting with web APIs or scraping web pages.
How can I pause or resume a download with wget?
To pause a download with wget, you can press Ctrl+C on your keyboard to interrupt the process. To resume a download with wget, you can use the -c or --continue option to continue getting a partially downloaded file. For example:
wget -c
This will resume the download from where it was interrupted, if possible.
How can I download multiple files with wget?
To download multiple files with wget, you can use the -i or --input-file option to read URLs from a file. For example, if you have a file called urls.txt that contains a list of URLs, one per line, you can use:
wget -i urls.txt
This will download all the files from the URLs in the file.
How can I download files in the background with wget?
To download files in the background with wget, you can use the -b or --background option to run the process in the background. For example:
wget -b
This will run the download in the background and save the output to a file called wget-log.
How can I limit the download speed with wget?
To limit the download speed with wget, you can use the --limit-rate option to specify the maximum download rate. For example:
wget --limit-rate=100k
This will limit the download speed to 100 kilobytes per second. 44f88ac181