Get WebData with MEL?

[bfx]

I'm trying to write a little weather app for Maya and I want to know if it's possible to get the read function working like it does with local files

$filePath = "http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=Tokyo,japan" ;
string $weathR[] ;
$fileId = fopen $filePath "r" ; 

returns

// Warning: line 1: fopen: unable to open file "http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=Tokyo,japan" for mode  "r". // 

So I'm wondering, how is it possible to get Maya to sample data from an external webpage?

Cheers 

[joojaa]

Yes use python. Mel has no facilities for asking webpages.

[bfx]

But I don't know how!!