title: Python - Download File Using Requests, Directly to Memory
body: <p>The goal is to download a file from the internet, and create from it a file object, or a file like object without ever having it touch the hard drive. This is just for my knowledge, wanting to know if its possible or practical, particularly because I would like to see if I can circumvent having to code a file deletion line.</p>
  
  <p>This is how I would normally download something from the web, and map it to memory:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import requests
  import mmap
  
  u = requests.get("http://www.pythonchallenge.com/pc/def/channel.zip")
  
  with open("channel.zip", "wb") as f: # I want to eliminate this, as this writes to disk
      f.write(u.content)
  
  with open("channel.zip", "r+b") as f: # and his as well, because it reads from disk
      mm = mmap.mmap(f.fileno(), 0)
      mm.seek(0)
      print mm.readline()
      mm.close() # question: if I do not include this, does this become a memory leak?
  </code></pre>