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# 13.3. `robotparser` — Parser for robots.txt

Note

The `robotparser` module has been renamed `urllib.robotparser` in Python 3. The 2to3 tool will automatically adapt imports when converting your sources to Python 3.

This module provides a single class, `RobotFileParser`, which answers questions about whether or not a particular user agent can fetch a URL on the Web site that published the `robots.txt` file. For more details on the structure of `robots.txt` files, see http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html.

class robotparser.RobotFileParser(url='')

  This class provides methods to read, parse and answer questions about the `robots.txt` file at url.

  set_url(url)

    Sets the URL referring to a `robots.txt` file.

  read()

    Reads the `robots.txt` URL and feeds it to the parser.

  parse(lines)

    Parses the lines argument.

  can_fetch(useragent, url)

    Returns `True` if the useragent is allowed to fetch the url according to the rules contained in the parsed `robots.txt` file.

  mtime()

    Returns the time the `robots.txt` file was last fetched. This is useful for long-running web spiders that need to check for new `robots.txt` files periodically.

  modified()

    Sets the time the `robots.txt` file was last fetched to the current time.

The following example demonstrates basic use of the RobotFileParser class.

    >>> import robotparser
    >>> rp = robotparser.RobotFileParser()
    >>> rp.set_url("http://www.musi-cal.com/robots.txt")
    >>> rp.read()
    >>> rp.can_fetch("*", "http://www.musi-cal.com/cgi-bin/search?city=San+Francisco")
    False
    >>> rp.can_fetch("*", "http://www.musi-cal.com/")
    True