How to use Python to include a .htm file in a website

I have a file gather.htm

that is a valid HTML file with header/body

and forms

. If I double-click the file on my desktop, it opens correctly in the web browser, automatically sends data form

(via <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="Javascript">document.forms[2].submit();</SCRIPT>

), and the page refreshes with the requested data.

I want Python to make a call requests.post(url)

using gather.htm

. However, my research and my trail and error have yielded no solution.

How is this achieved?

I've tried things along these lines (based on examples found on the internet). I suspect I am missing something simple here!

myUrl = 'www.somewhere.com'
filename='/Users/John/Desktop/gather.htm'
f = open (filename)
r =  requests.post(url=myUrl, data =  {'title':'test_file'},  files =  {'file':f})
print r.status_code
print r.text

      

        
        
        
      

    

and

htmfile = 'file:///Users/John/Desktop/gather.htm'
files = {'file':open('gather.htm')}
webbrowser.open(url,new=2)
response = requests.post(url)
print response.text

      

        
        
        
      

    

Note that in the second example above, the call webbrowser.open()

works correctly, but requests.post

does not work.

Everything I've tried seems to fail the same way - the url is opened and the page returns by default. It looks like the website never gets the file gather.htm

.