Download RSS Media Files using Python

Today I wanted to download a course from an RSS feed. The media files (mp3) were attached to the RSS entries. So instead of downloading tens of files one by one, I wrote a script!

With the help of Alvin's post to parse RSS with Python, I attached a download method and the script was ready to do the work for me.

First, here is the script:
[rss_downloader.py]

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#!/usr/bin/python   import feedparser import sys import urllib2   # # Takes a url and a directory for saving the file. Directory must exist. # def download(url, dir_name):     file_name = url.split('/')[-1]     u = urllib2.urlopen(url)     f = open(dir_name+'/'+file_name, 'wb')     meta = u.info()     file_size = int(meta.getheaders("Content-Length")[0])     print "Downloading File: %s (Size: %s Bytes)" % (file_name, file_size)       file_size_dl = 0     block_sz = 8192     while True:         buffer = u.read(block_sz)         if not buffer:             break           file_size_dl += len(buffer)         f.write(buffer)         status = r"%10d  [%3.2f%%]" % (file_size_dl, file_size_dl * 100. / file_size)         status = status + chr(8)*(len(status)+1)         print status,       f.close()   # # Take url and directory parameters from user call # url = sys.argv[1] dir_name = sys.argv[2]   # # Get the feed data from the url # feed = feedparser.parse(url)   # # Collect urls to download # urls_to_download = [] for entry in feed.entries:     links = entry.links     for link in links:         if link.type == u'audio/mpeg':             urls_to_download.append(link.href)   print("Files count: %s" % (len(urls_to_download)))   # # Download files # for url in urls_to_download:     download(url, dir_name)     # print(url)

You just call the script, pass RSS url, and the directory to save the files.

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1	python rss_downloader.py http://rss.dw.com/xml/DKpodcast_dwn1_en /home/madly/DeutschWarumNicht/serie1

This will parse the RSS feed, print the available links with type "audio/mpeg" (you can change this to be a value passed by the user), and download them with a progress display

This it. But there is more...

After doing this, I realized that I could simply print the output, copy the links all together to my download manager as a batch download, and enjoy the features of my download manager. After all, I wanted to download the files, not make a full application. Dummy me :D

However you choose to go with the script, I hope you find it useful.