[Tut] How to Check Your Internet Connection in Python?

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How to Check Your Internet Connection in Python?

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Problem Formulation and Solution Overview

In this article, you’ll learn how to check an Internet Connection in Python.

Problem: Given a Python program. You want to check if your computer currently has access to the Internet so you can do some follow-up work.

Example:

• If your computer has access, you want to print
  Code:

  "Success"
  .
  
  
• Otherwise, you want to print
  Code:

  "Failure"
  .
  

Specifically, how to implement the function

Code:

has_connection()

in the following sample code snippet?

Code:

if check_connection(): print('Success!') else: print('Failure!')

To make it more fun, we have the following running scenario:

Let’s assume you are a Python Coder working for AllTech. Lately, they have been having issues with their internet connections. You are tasked with writing code to check the connection and return a status/error message.

Question: How would we write Python code to check to see if an internet connection has been established?

We can accomplish this task by one of the following options:

• Method 1: Use
  Code:

  urlopen()
  
  
  
• Method 2: Use
  Code:

  requests.get()
  
  
  
• Method 3: Use a Lambda
  
  
• Method 4: Use
  Code:

  socket
  
  

Preparation

Before any data manipulation can occur, one (1) new library will require installation.

• The Requests library allows access to its many methods and makes data manipulation a breeze!
  

To install this library, navigate to an IDE terminal. At the command prompt (

Code:

$

), execute the code below. For the terminal used in this example, the command prompt is a dollar sign (

Code:

$

). Your terminal prompt may be different.

Code:

$ pip install requests

Hit the

Code:

<Enter>

key on the keyboard to start the installation process.

If the installation was successful, a message displays in the terminal indicating the same.

Feel free to view the PyCharm installation guide for the required library.

• How to install Requests on PyCharm
  

Add the following code to the top of each code snippet. This snippet will allow the code in this article to run error-free.

Code:

from urllib.request import urlopen as url import requests import socket

Method 1: Use urlopen()

This example uses

Code:

urlopen()

to establish a connection to the URL shown below. In addition, two (2) parameters are passed: a valid URL and a timeout.

Code:

try: url('https://finxter.com/', timeout=3) print('Success') except ConnectionError as e: print(f'Failure - {e}')

This code is wrapped inside a

Code:

try/except

statement. When run, the code drops inside the

Code:

try

statement and checks to see if a connection can be established to the indicated URL. This attempt waits three (3) seconds before timing out.

Depending on the connection status, a message indicating the same is output to the terminal.



Output

Code:

Success

Method 2: Use requests.get()

This example requires the use of the

Code:

requests

library and uses

Code:

requests.get()

to establish a connection to the URL shown below. A status code returns indicating Success or Failure.

Code:

res = requests.get('https://finxter.com/') print(res) if (res.status_code): print('Success') else: print('f'Failure')

This code accepts a URL and attempts to establish a connection to the same. The results of this connection save to

Code:

res

as an object.

Code:

<Response [200]>

This object must be referenced as indicated above to retrieve the status code. Then, the appropriate message is output to the terminal depending on this code.

Output

Code:

Success

Method 3: Use a Lambda

In the methods above, we used a few lines of code to establish a connection and display the appropriate result. This one-liner accomplishes the same task in one line!

Code:

# One-Liner to Check Internet Connection: print((lambda a: 'Success' if 0 == a.system('ping finxter.com -w 4 > clear') else 'Failure')(__import__('os')))

This code pings the shown URL and, depending on the results, outputs the appropriate message to the terminal. The remarkable thing is how you can import a library on-the-fly!



Output

Code:

Success

Method 4: Use socket

This example requires the

Code:

socket

library and creates a function to establish a connection to the URL shown below. A Boolean value returns indicating

Code:

True

/

Code:

False

.

Code:

def check_connection(): try: host = socket.gethostbyname('www.google.com') s = socket.create_connection((host, 80), 2) return True except: return False res = check_connection() print(res)

This code defines a new function,

Code:

check_connection

. Using a try/except statement attempts to connect to the indicated URL. Depending on the result, the function returns either

Code:

True

or

Code:

False

.

Finally, the function is called, the code runs, and the result outputs to the terminal.

Output

Code:

True

Summary

These four (4) methods to check the internet connection should give you enough information to select the best one for your coding requirements.

Good Luck & Happy Coding!