reqscraper

Lightweight wrapper for Request and X-Ray JS.

0.1.2
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Version published: 9 years ago

Weekly downloads: 6; decreased by-50%

Maintainers: 1

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Created: 9 years ago

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reqscraper

Lightweight wrapper for Request and X-Ray JS.

Sample Usage

This module contains the requestJS for making HTTP requests, and x-ray for easily scraping websites, called req and scrape respectively.

Both return promise. req has internal control structure to retry request up to 5 times for failsafe.

Brief API doc

req(options), where options is a request options object. See requestJS for full detail.
scrape(dyn, url, scope, selector), where dyn is the boolean to use dynamic scraping using x-ray-phantom; url is the page url, scope and selector are some HTML selectors. See x-ray for full detail.
scrapeCrawl(dyn, url, selector, tailArr, [limit]), where dyn is true for dynamic scraping using x-ray-phantom;

`req(options)`

Convenient wrapper for request js - HTTP request method that returns a promise.

param	desc
`options`	A `request` options object. See `requestJS` for full detail.

// imports
var scraper = require('reqscraper');
var req = scraper.req; // the request module

// sample use of req
var options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: 'https://www.google.com',
        headers: {
        	'Accept': 'application/json',
        	'Authorization': 'some_auth_details'
        }
    }

// returns the request result in a promise, for chaining
return req(options)
// prints the result
.then(console.log)
// prints the error if thrown
.catch(console.log)

`scrape(dyn, url, scope, selector)`

Scraper that returns a promise. Backed by x-ray.

param	desc
`dyn`	the boolean to use dynamic scraping using `x-ray-phantom`
`url`	the page url to scrape
`[scope]`	Optional scope to narrow now the target HTML for selector
`selector`	HTML selector. See `x-ray` for full detail.

// imports
var scraper = require('reqscraper');
var scrape = scraper.scrape; // the scraper

// sample use of scrape, non-dynamic
return scrape(false, 'https://www.google.com', 'body')
// prints the HTML <body> tag
.then(console.log)

// You can also call it with scope in param #3, and selector in #4
return scrape(false, 'https://www.google.com', 'body', ['li'])
// prints the <li>'s inside the <body> tag
.then(console.log)

`scrapeCrawl(dyn, url, selector, tailArr)`

An extension of scrape above with crawling capability. Returns a promise with results in a tree-like JSON structure. Crawls by a breath-first tree structure, and does not crawl deeper if the root of a branch is not crawlable.

param	desc
`dyn`	the boolean to use dynamic scraping using `x-ray-phantom`
`url`	the base page url to scrape and crawl from
`selector`	The selector for the base page (first level)
`tailArr`	An array of selectors for each level to crawl. Note that a preceeding selector must specify the urls to crawl via `hrefs`.
`[limit]`	An optional integer to limit the number of children crawled at every level.

// imports
var scraper = require('reqscraper');
var scrapeCrawl = scraper.scrapeCrawl; // the scrape-crawler

// dynamic scraper
var dc = scrapeCrawl.bind(null, true)
// static scraper
var sc = scrapeCrawl.bind(null, false)

// sample use of scrape-crawl, static

// base selector, level 0
// has attribute `hrefs` for crawling next
var selector0 = {
    img: ['.dribbble-img'],
    h1: ['h1'],
    hrefs: ['.next_page@href']
}

// has attribute `hrefs` for crawling
var selector1 = {
    h1: ['h1'],
    hrefs: ['.next_page@href']
}
// the last selector where crawling ends; no need for `hrefs`
var selector2 = {
    h1: ['h1']
}

// Sample call of the method
sc(
    'https://dribbble.com', 
    selector0,
    // crawl for 3 more times before stoppping at the 4th level
    [selector1, selector1, selector1, selector2]
    )
.then(function(res){
    // prints the result
    console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 2))
})


// Same as above, but with a limit on how many children should be crawled (3 below)
sc(
    'https://dribbble.com', 
    selector0,
    // crawl for 3 more times before stoppping at the 4th level
    [selector1, selector1, selector1, selector2],
    3
    )
.then(function(res){
    // prints the result
    console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 2))
})

Changelog

Aug 18 2015

Added scrapecrawl, basically a scraper extended from scrape that can also crawl.
Updated README for better API doc.

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Package last updated on 28 Jan 2016

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