<pre><code>url = "http://example.com/file.xml"
data = urllib2.urlopen(url)
data.read()
</code></pre>

<p>The question is, when exactly will the file be downloaded from the internet? When i do urlopen or .read()? On my network interface I see high traffic both times. </p>

I think I remember reading about a bug relating to this in TortoiseSVN that's been fixed in the latest release.  Check the latest
release notes
.