In the HOWTO for urllib2 for Python 2, in the Handling Exceptions section, it discusses the URLError exception being raised by urlopen() (https://docs.python.org/2/howto/urllib2.html#urlerror). The code snippet example for this has (I think) a minor error:
the 3rd line reads:
"except URLError as e:"
which I think should be:
"except urllib2.URLError as e:"

The code as given only works if urllib2 had been imported via:
"from urllib2 import *"
The snippet doesn't list the import statements but all the other examples just use "import urllib2" (and obviously "from x import *" is bad practice anyway and wouldn't be encouraged or expected).

I am relatively new to Python, so it's possible it *is* correct and I just implemented it incorrectly. But if not, it would be helpful to correct it (even though it's a very minor error) so that other newbies like me don't come unstuck when using the tutorial.

Thanks for reporting this issue. Indeed, this is an error in the documentation. Notice that this is corrected in Python3 's version:

https://docs.python.org/3.6/howto/urllib2.html#handling-exceptions

I have prepared a Pull Request fixing this. Thanks!

New changeset 8ca036d4716fc86ff42474ba35d3cd32f0188a15 by Mariatta (Pablo Galindo) in branch '2.7':
bpo-32586: Fix code example in urllib2's doc  (GH-5238)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/8ca036d4716fc86ff42474ba35d3cd32f0188a15

Thanks!

Thanks for the fix and the tip about cross-checking in Python 3 - will remember that for the future.