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+
+:mod:`robotparser` ---  Parser for robots.txt
+=============================================
+
+.. module:: robotparser
+   :synopsis: Loads a robots.txt file and answers questions about fetchability of other URLs.
+.. sectionauthor:: Skip Montanaro <skip@mojam.com>
+
+
+.. index::
+   single: WWW
+   single: World Wide Web
+   single: URL
+   single: robots.txt
+
+This module provides a single class, :class:`RobotFileParser`, which answers
+questions about whether or not a particular user agent can fetch a URL on the
+Web site that published the :file:`robots.txt` file.  For more details on  the
+structure of :file:`robots.txt` files, see
+http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html.
+
+
+.. class:: RobotFileParser()
+
+   This class provides a set of methods to read, parse and answer questions about a
+   single :file:`robots.txt` file.
+
+
+   .. method:: RobotFileParser.set_url(url)
+
+      Sets the URL referring to a :file:`robots.txt` file.
+
+
+   .. method:: RobotFileParser.read()
+
+      Reads the :file:`robots.txt` URL and feeds it to the parser.
+
+
+   .. method:: RobotFileParser.parse(lines)
+
+      Parses the lines argument.
+
+
+   .. method:: RobotFileParser.can_fetch(useragent, url)
+
+      Returns ``True`` if the *useragent* is allowed to fetch the *url* according to
+      the rules contained in the parsed :file:`robots.txt` file.
+
+
+   .. method:: RobotFileParser.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.
+
+
+   .. method:: RobotFileParser.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
+