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Web-scraping part-2
#1
Update 1-4-2018
  • All tested Python 3.6.4
  • Added more Selenium stuff and headless mode setup
  • Added Final projects which play songs on SoundCloud
  • Link to Web-Scraping part 1

In part 2 do some practice and look at how to scrape pages with JavaScript.
Scrape and download:

Start bye doing some stuff with xkcd.
[Image: AL3Z2m.jpg]

Using CSS selector for text select('#ctitle') and find() for image link.
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import webbrowser
import os

url = 'http://xkcd.com/1/'
url_get = requests.get(url)
soup = BeautifulSoup(url_get.content, 'lxml')
text = soup.select_one('#ctitle').text
link = soup.find('div', id='comic').find('img').get('src')
link = link.replace('//', 'http://')

# Image title and link
print('{}\n{}'.format(text, link))

# Download image
img_name = os.path.basename(link)
img = requests.get(link)
with open(img_name, 'wb') as f_out:
    f_out.write(img.content)

# Open image in browser or default image viewer
webbrowser.open_new_tab(img_name)
Output:
Barrel - Part 1 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/barrel_cropped_(1).jpg

Loop over pages and get images:

xkcd has a simple page structure xkcd.com/1/ xkcd.com/2/... ect
So can loop over and get images,set start and stop.
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import os

def image_down(start_img, stop_img):
    for numb in range(start_img, stop_img):
        url = 'http://xkcd.com/{}/'.format(numb)
        url_get = requests.get(url)
        soup = BeautifulSoup(url_get.content, 'html.parser')
        link = soup.find('div', id='comic').find('img').get('src')
        link = link.replace('//', 'http://')
        img_name = os.path.basename(link)
        try:
            img = requests.get(link)
            with open(img_name, 'wb') as f_out:
                f_out.write(img.content)
        except:
            # Just want images don't care about errors
            pass

if __name__ == '__main__':
    start_img = 1
    stop_img = 20
    image_down(start_img, stop_img)

Speed it up a lot with concurrent.futures:

concurrent.futures has a minimalistic API for Threading and Multiprocessing.
Only change one word to switch ThreadPoolExecutor(Threading) and ProcessPoolExecutor(Multiprocessing).

So if download 200 images(start_img=1, stop_img=200) it takes ca 1,10 minute to download in code over.
Will press time down to 10-sec Shocked  for 200 images.
Making all links and load 20 parallel task ProcessPoolExecutor(Multiprocessing).
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import concurrent.futures
import os

def image_down(url):
    url_get = requests.get(url)
    soup = BeautifulSoup(url_get.content, 'lxml')
    link = soup.find('div', id='comic').find('img').get('src')
    link = link.replace('//', 'http://')
    img_name = os.path.basename(link)
    try:
        img = requests.get(link)
        with open(img_name, 'wb') as f_out:
            f_out.write(img.content)
    except:
        # Just want images don't care about errors
        pass

if __name__ == '__main__':
    start_img = 1
    stop_img = 200
    with concurrent.futures.ProcessPoolExecutor(max_workers=20) as executor:
        for numb in range(start_img, stop_img):
            url = 'http://xkcd.com/{}/'.format(numb)
            executor.submit(image_down, url)

JavaScript,why do i not get all content Wall

JavaScript is used all over the web because it's unique position to run in Browser(client side).
This can make it more difficult to do parsing,
because Requests/bs4/lxml can not get all that's is executed/rendered bye JavaScript.

There are way to overcome this,gone use Selenium
Installation

Example with How Secure Is My Password?
So this give real time info using JavaScripts,gone enter in password 123hello in Selenium.
Then give source code to BeautifulSoup for parsing.
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import time

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
'''
#-- FireFox
caps = webdriver.DesiredCapabilities().FIREFOX
caps["marionette"] = True
browser = webdriver.Firefox(capabilities=caps)
'''

url = 'https://howsecureismypassword.net/'
browser.get(url)
inputElement = browser.find_elements_by_class_name("password-input")[0]
inputElement.send_keys("123hello")
inputElement.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
time.sleep(5) #seconds

# Give source code to BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(browser.page_source, 'html.parser')

# Get JavaScript info from site
top_text = soup.select_one('.result__text.result__before')
crack_time = soup.select_one('.result__text.result__time')
bottom_text  = soup.select_one('.result__text.result__after')
print(top_text.text)
print(crack_time.text)
print(bottom_text.text)
time.sleep(5) #seconds
browser.close()
Output:
It would take a computer about 1 minute to crack your password

Headless(not loading browser):

Both Chrome and FireFox now release headless mode in there newer drivers.
This mean that browser do not start(visible) as in example over.
Gone look at a simple setup for both Chrome and FireFox.

FireFox:
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.options import Options
import time

#--| Setup
options = Options()
options.set_headless(headless=True)
caps = webdriver.DesiredCapabilities().FIREFOX
caps["marionette"] = True
browser = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_options=options, capabilities=caps, executable_path=r"path to geckodriver")
#--| Parse
browser.get('https://www.python.org/')
time.sleep(2)
t = browser.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="dive-into-python"]/ul[2]/li[1]/div[1]/pre/code/span[1]')
print(t.text)
browser.quit()
Output:
# Python 3: Fibonacci series up to n
Chrome:
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
import time

#--| Setup
chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")
chrome_options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')
chrome_options.add_argument('--log-level=3')
browser = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=chrome_options, executable_path=r'path to chromedriver')
#--| Parse
browser.get('https://www.python.org/')
time.sleep(2)
t = browser.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="dive-into-python"]/ul[2]/li[1]/div[1]/pre/code/span[1]')
print(t.text)
browser.quit()
Output:
# Python 3: Fibonacci series up to n

Final projects:
[Image: Qr8P7Q.png]
Here gone loop over most played tracks on SoundCloud this week.
So here first has to activate mouser over play button(ActionChains/hover) then click on play button.
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
import time

def play_song(how_many_songs, time_to__play):
    browser = webdriver.Chrome()
    url = 'https://soundcloud.com/charts/top?genre=all-music&country=all-countries'
    browser.get(url)
    time.sleep(3)
    for song_number in range(1, how_many_songs+1):
        play = browser.find_elements_by_xpath('//*[@id="content"]/div/div/div[1]/div[2]/div/div[3]/ul/li[{}]/div/div[2]/div[2]/a'.format(song_number))[0]
        hover = ActionChains(browser).move_to_element(play)
        hover.perform()
        play.click()
        time.sleep(time_to__play)
    browser.quit()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    how_many_songs = 5
    time_to__play = 15 # sec
    play_song(how_many_songs, time_to__play)
Reply
#2
I think the following should be included into the tutorial pertaining to selenium.

proper waiting instead of using time.sleep
Sometimes you need the browser to just wait while the page is loading, otherwise it will fail because the content is not yet loaded. Instead of arbitrarily waiting X number of seconds (time.sleep), you can use WebDriverWait to wait... lets say until the element you are looking for exists. Then you are not waiting longer than needed, or possibly too short and fail as well.
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

...
WebDriverWait(browser, 3).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.ID, 'global-new-tweet-button')))
That this will wait for the presence of the element with the ID of "global-new-tweet-button". It will timeout after 3 seconds of not finding it. You can of course extend this timeout as needed. The presence of the element located and ID is not the only thing we can search for. Below is the list of built-in methods to search for elements based on circumstances and content.


references
These are a list of convenience methods in selenium that are common to use to search for elements
These are a list of locating methods in selenium that are common to use to search for elements

You can find the definition of each expected support condition here.

more info:
https://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/waits.html
https://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/l...ments.html

performing key combos
Sometimes we want to perform key combinations to do things in the browser.
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

ActionChains(browser).key_down(Keys.COMMAND).send_keys("s").key_up(Keys.COMMAND).perform()
Where in this specific example in Firefox will execute Ctrl+S to bring up the save as menu.


switching or opening tabs
Switching tabs is often used as selecting things may bring up data in a whole different tab. Thus we need to switch to and from these tabs.
# Opens a new tab
driver.execute_script("window.open()")

# Switch to the newly opened tab
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[1])

# Navigate to new URL in new tab
driver.get("https://google.com")
# Run other commands in the new tab here

You're then able to close the original tab as follows

# Switch to original tab
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[0])

# Close original tab
driver.close()

# Switch back to newly opened tab, which is now in position 0
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[0])

Or close the newly opened tab

# Close current tab
driver.close()

# Switch back to original tab
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[0])
scrolling to the bottom of the page regardless of length
This in the cases where pages do not load the entire page until you scroll such as facebook. This will scroll to the bottom of the page, let it wait to load the rest (via time.sleep be aware), and keep repeating until it is at the bottom. To make this more portable it is using time.sleep, but you can wait for a specific element in your website if needed to be faster.
def scroll_to_bottom(driver):
    #driver = self.browser
    SCROLL_PAUSE_TIME = 0.5
    # Get scroll height
    last_height = driver.execute_script("return document.body.scrollHeight")

    while True:
        # Scroll down to bottom
        driver.execute_script("window.scrollTo(0, document.body.scrollHeight);")

        # Wait to load page
        time.sleep(SCROLL_PAUSE_TIME)

        # Calculate new scroll height and compare with last scroll height
        new_height = driver.execute_script("return document.body.scrollHeight")
        if new_height == last_height:
            break
        last_height = new_height

#call scroll_to_bottom(browser) when you want it to scroll to the bottom of the page
Handle exceptions with built-in's:
Use a try and except to get you where you want to go
>>> import selenium.common.exceptions as EX
>>> help(EX)
Output:
builtins.Exception(builtins.BaseException) WebDriverException ErrorInResponseException ImeActivationFailedException ImeNotAvailableException InvalidArgumentException InvalidCookieDomainException InvalidElementStateException ElementNotInteractableException ElementNotSelectableException ElementNotVisibleException InvalidSwitchToTargetException NoSuchFrameException NoSuchWindowException MoveTargetOutOfBoundsException NoAlertPresentException NoSuchAttributeException NoSuchElementException InvalidSelectorException RemoteDriverServerException StaleElementReferenceException TimeoutException UnableToSetCookieException UnexpectedAlertPresentException UnexpectedTagNameException
Does the site use Javascript in the first place?
An easy way to test if Javacript is blocking you in the first place is to turn off javascript on your browser and reload the website. If what you are parsing is missing, then its a quick way to determine it is generated by javascript...requiring selenium. Another way is to check the javascript source code on the website regarding the element you are parsing. If there is a javascript call in the header, then you will need selenium to parse it.

Search for unique elements
Often you are parsing sites that do not want a bot to parse them. You need to find a unique element for the content you are parsing. If it does not have one, then search higher in the HTML for one to start a point of reference for the element you are looking for. Then work your way down further to the exact element. More often than not the ID us unique enough. By far the quickest way is to search for the xpath of the element. But note that this can change over time. Websites change over time and can break your code. You will need to update the code as the website changes.
Recommended Tutorials:
Reply
#3
Are you the one that used lxml a lot? It would be nice to see a side by side comparison of scraping with BS and lxml.
Recommended Tutorials:
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#4
Quote:Are you the one that used lxml a lot?
I used it more before alone,still use it but now mostly as parser trough BeautifulSoup(url_get.content, 'lxml').
So then BS get speed of lxml parser.
I use BeautifulSoup(url_get.content, 'html.parser') in tutorial,because then no need to install lxml.
Reply
#5
I was thinking more of xpath method, something like an alternative to BeautifulSoup side by side

from lxml import etree
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

html = '<html><head><title>foo</title></head><body><div class="other"></div><div class="name"><p>foo</p></div><div class="name"><ul><li>bar</li></ul></div></body></html>'

tree = etree.fromstring(html)
for elem in tree.xpath("//div[@class='name']"):
    print(etree.tostring(elem, pretty_print=True))
     
soup = BeautifulSoup(html, 'lxml')
for elem in soup.find_all('div', {'class':'name'}):
    print(elem.prettify())
Recommended Tutorials:
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#6
(Jan-29-2017, 01:35 AM)metulburr Wrote: I was thinking more of xpath method, something like an alternative to BeautifulSoup side by side
Yeah can make a comparison,been a while since i used lxml.

So i want to use Python 3.6 and new install of BS and lxml.
Then virtual environment is the choice.
Here the install:

Using BS class_ call instead of the dict call,and BS always return Unicode.
For lxml use encoding='unicode' to get Unicode when using pretty print.
See that to get text(Hulk) is similar for both soup.find('p').text)
  • BeautifulSoup

  • lxml


CSS selector
Both BS and lxml(also XPath) support CSS selector.
Need to install CSS selector for lxml pip install cssselect-1.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl.

Here a quick tutorial in this Pen.
See that i change color on the text,
now using same method to scrape the content .

  • BeautifulSoup
  • Lxml
Reply
#7
So here gone look a getting source from the web with BeautifulSoup and lxml.
For both BS and lxml(aslo has it's own method) is advisable to use Requests.
So i install Requests into my virtual environment:

Gone use python.org as example.
We are getting the head tag which is <title>Welcome to Python.org</title>.
As mention before in part-1 use Developer Tools Chrome and FireFox(earlier FireBug) to navigate/inspect web-site.

So using method over XPath /html/head/title and CSS selector head > title,
to get the head title tag.

  • BeautifulSoup CSS selector

  • lxml XPath
  • lxml CSS selector

Reply
#8
I think there should be like a "block section" added to the tutorial. Hindrances to scraping; like identifying and switching to an iframe. As well as identifying if there is a JSON for the data scraping to not have to scrape at all in the first place.
Recommended Tutorials:
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#9
Bump part-2 is updated.
Reply
#10
based on this
https://python-forum.io/Thread-Headless-...8#pid60628

Does that mean its better to use add_argument('--headless') rather than set_headless()?
Recommended Tutorials:
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