try:
    req = Request(theurl, txdata, txheaders)            # create a request object
    handle = urlopen(req)                               # and open it to return a handle on the url
except IOError, e:
    print 'We failed to open "%s".' % theurl
    if hasattr(e, 'code'):
        print 'We failed with error code - %s.' % e.code
else:
    print 'Here are the headers of the page :'
    print handle.info()                             # handle.read() returns the page, handle.geturl() returns the true url of the page fetched (in case urlopen has followed any redirects, which it sometimes does)