Wrapper function to handle logic around urllib2.urlopen()

get_url.py

# Utility function to get a URL with error handling
# Accepts URL string or urllib2.Request object
def get_url(orig_request):
    if isinstance(orig_request, basestring):
        url = orig_request.encode('utf8')
        request = urllib2.Request(url)
    elif isinstance(orig_request, urllib2.Request):
        request = orig_request
    else:
        return None

    try:
        response = urllib2.urlopen(request)
    except urllib2.HTTPError as e:
        sys.stderr.write("The server couldn't fulfill the request for URL %s: %s\n" % (request.get_full_url(), e))
        return None
    except urllib2.URLError as e:
        sys.stderr.write('We failed to reach a server for URL %s: %s\n' % (request.get_full_url(), e))
        return None
    else:
        return response