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When testing urllib.request.urlopen in Python 3, I found that it gave empty responses for some sites. In other words, reading from the file-like object gives zero bytes. Python 2.x's urllib2.urlopen did not give this behavior. I isolated the problem down to the following difference:
@@ -1137,8 +1137,6 @@
 r = h.getresponse() # an HTTPResponse instance
 except socket.error as err:
 raise URLError(err)
- finally:
- h.close()
 
 r.url = req.get_full_url()
 # This line replaces the .msg attribute of the HTTPResponse
The "finally" clause is absent in urllib2.py but present in Python 3.2's request.py. I think it has something to do with the HTTPConnection being closed before data could be read. Still, it's puzzling because some sites still give expected answers. Please find attached a small test script for "www.wsj.com" for which the response body should be empty without applying the above patch.