python httplib howto

I want to connect to a web services server, send a request, and read the response.
I have a Java program that does this but am getting nowhere with httplib.

This appears to work:
import httplib
url = 'xxxxxxxx'
connection = httplib.HTTPConnection(url)

Then:
body is represented by the following (not complete):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<CatalogListRequest>
  <DocumentID>XYZ-111122223333</DocumentID>
...
and headers is
headers = {'Content-type':'text/xml', 'SOAPAction':'CatalogListRequest'}

This command:
connection.request("POST",url,body,headers)

gives the error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 29, in <module>
    connection.request("POST",url,body,headers)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/httplib.py", line 862, in request
    self._send_request(method, url, body, headers)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/httplib.py", line 885, in _send_request
    self.endheaders()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/httplib.py", line 856, in endheaders
    self._send_output()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/httplib.py", line 728, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/httplib.py", line 695, in send
    self.connect()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/httplib.py", line 663, in connect
    socket.SOCK_STREAM):
socket.gaierror: (-2, 'Name or service not known')

I don't know what I am doing so my code may be totally wrong. I cobbled it together from examples I found.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Peter
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