Beginner: Download webpage + diff compare script?

[persofi]

Hi,

I dont know any programming so I would really appreciate any help :) I want to write the following script for use in Ubuntu: (If possible in Python, because I like open-source)

(1) Download file "www.test.com/test.htm" into a folder called "Folder1" and name the file "abc.htm"

(2) Diffcompare(?) it to an existing file in "Folder2" which is also called "abc.htm".

(3) Write a report into a text file stating if the files are identical, or if there are differences.

I guess this is not a very difficult script to write? Do you have any tips where I should look to get started?

If my explanations above arent too clear: The function of the script is to compare a larger number of legal statutes in .htm format saved on my hard drive to the recent version on the website I downloaded them from.
The "www.test.com/test.htm" adress never changes, but the content of the files might get updated.
There are about 80 different files, do I need to declare as many different variables?

[diesch]

The easies way is to write a shell script: Use wget to download the file and diff to compare it.

If you want to do it in Python have a look at urllib2.urlopen() for downloading. It returns a file-like object so you can use .readline() to read the content line-by-line and compre it with the stored file's content.

In both cases I'd use a map from URLs to stored files (if there'sno simple relation between them); in shell a file with tab separated values should do, in Python a dict is a natural choice.