Object
Information about the HTML page scraped. A structure with the following attributes:
url -- The URL of the document being scraped. Passed in the constructor but may have changed if the page was redirected.
original_url -- The original URL of the document being scraped as passed in the constructor.
encoding -- The encoding of the document.
last_modified -- Value of the Last-Modified header returned from the server.
etag -- Value of the Etag header returned from the server.
Declares which accessors are arrays. You can declare the accessor here, or use "symbol[]" as the target.
For example:
array :urls process "a[href]", :urls=>"@href"
Is equivalent to:
process "a[href]", "urls[]"=>"@href"
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 473 def array(*symbols) @arrays ||= [] symbols.each do |symbol| symbol = symbol.to_sym @arrays << symbol begin self.instance_method(symbol) rescue NameError attr_accessor symbol end end end
Returns the element itself.
You can use this method from an extractor, e.g.:
process "h1", :header=>:element
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 373 def element(element) element end
Creates an extractor that will extract values from the selected element and place them in instance variables of the scraper. You can pass the result to process.
This example processes a document looking for an element with the class name article. It extracts the attribute id and stores it in the instance variable +@id+. It extracts the article node itself and puts it in the instance variable +@article+.
class ArticleScraper < Scraper::Base process ".article", extractor(:id=>"@id", :article=>:element) attr_reader :id, :article end result = ArticleScraper.scrape(html) puts result.id puts result.article
Extractors operate on the selected element, and can extract the following values:
"elem_name" -- Extracts the element itself if it matches the element name (e.g. "h2" will extract only level 2 header elements).
"attr_name" -- Extracts the attribute value from the element if specified (e.g. "@id" will extract the id attribute).
"elem_name@attr_name" -- Extracts the attribute value from the element if specified, but only if the element has the specified name (e.g. "h2@id").
:element -- Extracts the element itself.
:text -- Extracts the text value of the node.
Scraper -- Using this class creates a scraper to process the current element and extract the result. This can be used for handling complex structure.
If you use an array of sources, the first source that matches anything is used. For example, ["attr@title", :text] extracts the value of the title attribute if the element is abbr, otherwise the text value of the element.
If you use a hash, you can extract multiple values at the same time. For example, {:id=>"@id", :class=>"@class"} extracts the id and class attribute values.
:element and :text are special cases of symbols. You can pass any symbol that matches a class method and that class method will be called to extract a value from the selected element. You can also pass a Proc or Method directly.
And it's always possible to pass a static value, quite useful for processing an element with more than one rule (:skip=>false).
Extractors assign the extracted value to an instance variable of the scraper. The instance variable contains the last value extracted.
Also creates an accessor for that instance variable. An accessor is created if no such method exists. For example, :title=>:text creates an accessor for title. However, :id=>"@id" does not create an accessor since each object already has a method called id.
If you want to extract multiple values into the same variables, use array to declare that accessor as an array.
Alternatively, you can append [] to the variable name. For example:
process "*", "ids[]"=>"@id" result :ids
The special target :skip allows you to control whether other rules can apply to the same element. By default a processing rule without a block (or a block that returns true) will skip that element so no other processing rule sees it.
You can change this with :skip=>false.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 283 def extractor(map) extracts = [] map.each_pair do |target, source| source = extract_value_from(source) target = extract_value_to(target) define_method :__extractor do |element| value = source.call(element) target.call(self, value) if !value.nil? end extracts << instance_method(:__extractor) remove_method :__extractor end lambda do |element| extracts.each do |extract| extract.bind(self).call(element) end true end end
Create a new scraper instance.
The argument source is a URL, string containing HTML, or HTML::Node. The optional argument options are options passed to the scraper. See Base#scrape for more details.
For example:
# The page we want to scrape url = URI.parse("http://example.com") # Skip the header scraper = MyScraper.new(url, :root_element=>"body") result = scraper.scrape
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 715 def initialize(source, options = nil) @page_info = PageInfo[] @options = options || {} case source when URI @document = source when String, HTML::Node @document = source # TODO: document and test case these two. @page_info.url = @page_info.original_url = @options[:url] @page_info.encoding = @options[:encoding] else raise ArgumentError, "Can only scrape URI, String or HTML::Node" end end
Returns the options for this class.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 412 def options() @options ||= {} end
Specifies which parser to use. The default is :tidy.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 379 def parser(name = :tidy) self.options[:parser] = name end
Options to pass to the parser.
For example, when using Tidy, you can use these options to tell Tidy how to clean up the HTML.
This method sets the option for the class. Classes inherit options from their parents. You can also pass options to the scraper object itself using the :parser_options option.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 392 def parser_options(options) self.options[:parser_options] = options end
Defines a processing rule. A processing rule consists of a selector that matches element, and an extractor that does something interesting with their value.
Rules are processed in the order in which they are defined. Use rules if you need to change the order of processing.
Rules can be named or anonymous. If the first argument is a symbol, it is used as the rule name. You can use the rule name to position, remove or replace it.
The first argument is a selector. It selects elements from the document that are potential candidates for extraction. Each selected element is passed to the extractor.
The selector argument may be a string, an HTML::Selector object or any object that responds to the select method. Passing an Array (responds to select) will not do anything useful.
String selectors support value substitution, replacing question marks (?) in the selector expression with values from the method arguments. See HTML::Selector for more information.
The last argument or block is the extractor. The extractor does something interested with the selected element, typically assigns it to an instance variable of the scraper.
Since the extractor is called on the scraper, it can also use the scraper to maintain state, e.g. this extractor counts how many div elements appear in the document:
process "div" { |element| @count += 1 }
The extractor returns true if the element was processed and should not be passed to any other extractor (including any child elements).
The default implementation of result returns self only if at least one extractor returned true. However, you can override result and use extractors that return false.
A block extractor is called with a single element.
You can also use the extractor method to create extractors that assign elements, attributes and text values to instance variables, or pass a Hash as the last argument to process. See extractor for more information.
When using a block, the last statement is the response. Do not use return, use next if you want to return a value before the last statement. return does not do what you expect it to.
class ScrapePosts < Scraper::Base # Select the title of a post selector :select_title, "h2" # Select the body of a post selector :select_body, ".body" # All elements with class name post. process ".post" do |element| title = select_title(element) body = select_body(element) @posts << Post.new(title, body) true end attr_reader :posts end posts = ScrapePosts.scrape(html).posts
To process only a single element:
class ScrapeTitle < Scraper::Base process "html>head>title", :title=>text result :title end puts ScrapeTitle.scrape(html)
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 123 def process(*selector, &block) create_process(false, *selector, &block) end
Similar to process, but only extracts from the first selected element. Faster if you know the document contains only one applicable element, or only interested in processing the first one.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 132 def process_first(*selector, &block) create_process(true, *selector, &block) end
Modifies this scraper to return a single value or a structure. Use in combination with accessors.
When called with one symbol, scraping returns the result of calling that method (typically an accessor). When called with two or more symbols, scraping returns a structure of values, one for each symbol.
For example:
class ScrapeTitle < Scraper::Base process_first "html>head>title", :title=>:text result :title end puts "Title: " + ScrapeTitle.scrape(html) class ScrapeDts < Scraper::Base process ".dtstart", :dtstart=>["abbr@title", :text] process ".dtend", :dtend=>["abbr@title", :text] result :dtstart, :dtend end dts = ScrapeDts.scrape(html) puts "Starts: #{dts.dtstart}" puts "Ends: #{dts.dtend}"
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 449 def result(*symbols) raise ArgumentError, "Use one symbol to return the value of this accessor, multiple symbols to returns a structure" if symbols.empty? symbols = symbols.map {|s| s.to_sym} if symbols.size == 1 define_method :result do return self.send(symbols[0]) end else struct = Struct.new(*symbols) define_method :result do return struct.new(*symbols.collect {|s| self.send(s) }) end end end
The root element to scrape.
The root element for an HTML document is html. However, if you want to scrape only the header or body, you can set the root_element to head or body.
This method sets the root element for the class. Classes inherit this option from their parents. You can also pass a root element to the scraper object itself using the :root_element option.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 406 def root_element(name) self.options[:root_element] = name ? name.to_s : nil end
Returns an array of rules defined for this class. You can use this array to change the order of rules.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 419 def rules() @rules ||= [] end
Scrapes the document and returns the result.
The first argument provides the input document. It can be one of:
URI -- Retrieve an HTML page from this URL and scrape it.
String -- The HTML page as a string.
HTML::Node -- An HTML node, can be a document or element.
You can specify options for the scraper class, or override these by passing options in the second argument. Some options only make sense in the constructor.
The following options are supported for reading HTML pages:
:last_modified -- Last-Modified header used for caching.
:etag -- ETag header used for caching.
:redirect_limit -- Limits number of redirects to follow.
:user_agent -- Value for User-Agent header.
:timeout -- HTTP open connection/read timeouts (in second).
The following options are supported for parsing the HTML:
:root_element -- The root element to scrape, see also root_elements.
:parser_options -- Specifies which parser to use. (Typically, you set this for the class).
:parser_options -- Options to pass to the parser.
The result is returned by calling the result method. The default implementation returns self if any extractor returned true, nil otherwise.
For example:
result = MyScraper.scrape(url, :root_element=>"body")
The method may raise any number of exceptions. HTTPError indicates it failed to retrieve the HTML page, and HTMLParseError that it failed to parse the page. Other exceptions come from extractors and the result method.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 345 def scrape(source, options = nil) scraper = self.new(source, options); return scraper.scrape end
Create a selector method. You can call a selector method directly to select elements.
For example, define a selector:
selector :five_divs, "div" { |elems| elems[0..4] }
And call it to retrieve the first five div elements:
divs = five_divs(element)
Call a selector method with an element and it returns an array of elements that match the selector, beginning with the element argument itself. It returns an empty array if nothing matches.
If the selector is defined with a block, all selected elements are passed to the block and the result of the block is returned.
For convenience, a first_ method is also created that returns (and yields) only the first selected element. For example:
selector :post, "#post" @post = first_post
Since the selector is defined with a block, both methods call that block with an array of elements.
The selector argument may be a string, an HTML::Selector object or any object that responds to the select method. Passing an Array (responds to select) will not do anything useful.
String selectors support value substitution, replacing question marks (?) in the selector expression with values from the method arguments. See HTML::Selector for more information.
When using a block, the last statement is the response. Do not use return, use next if you want to return a value before the last statement. return does not do what you expect it to.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 175 def selector(symbol, *selector, &block) raise ArgumentError, "Missing selector: the first argument tells us what to select" if selector.empty? if selector[0].is_a?(String) selector = HTML::Selector.new(*selector) else raise ArgumentError, "Selector must respond to select() method" unless selector.respond_to?(:select) selector = selector[0] end if block define_method symbol do |element| selected = selector.select(element) return block.call(selected) unless selected.empty? end define_method "first_#{symbol}" do |element| selected = selector.select_first(element) return block.call([selected]) if selected end else define_method symbol do |element| return selector.select(element) end define_method "first_#{symbol}" do |element| return selector.select_first(element) end end end
Returns the text of the element.
You can use this method from an extractor, e.g.:
process "title", :title=>:text
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 355 def text(element) text = "" stack = element.children.reverse while node = stack.pop if node.tag? stack.concat node.children.reverse else text << node.content end end return text end
Returns the document being processed.
If the scraper was created with a URL, this method will attempt to retrieve the page and parse it.
If the scraper was created with a string, this method will attempt to parse the page.
Be advised that calling this method may raise an exception (HTTPError or HTMLParseError).
The document is parsed only the first time this method is called.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 856 def document if @document.is_a?(URI) # Attempt to read page. May raise HTTPError. options = {} READER_OPTIONS.each { |key| options[key] = option(key) } request(@document, options) end if @document.is_a?(String) # Parse the page. May raise HTMLParseError. parsed = Reader.parse_page(@document, @page_info.encoding, option(:parser_options), option(:parser)) @document = parsed.document @page_info.encoding = parsed.encoding end return @document if @document.is_a?(HTML::Node) raise RuntimeError, "No document to process" end
Returns the value of an option.
Returns the value of an option passed to the scraper on creation. If not specified, return the value of the option set for this scraper class. Options are inherited from the parent class.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 967 def option(symbol) return options.has_key?(symbol) ? options[symbol] : self.class.options[symbol] end
Called by scrape after creating the document, but before running any processing rules.
You can override this method to do any preparation work.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 932 def prepare(document) end
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 875 def request(url, options) if page = Reader.read_page(@document, options) @page_info.url = page.url @page_info.original_url = @document @page_info.last_modified = page.last_modified @page_info.etag = page.etag @page_info.encoding = page.encoding @document = page.content end end
Returns the result of a succcessful scrape.
This method is called by scrape after running all the rules on the document. You can also call it directly.
Override this method to return a specific object, perform post-scraping processing, validation, etc.
The default implementation returns self if any extractor returned true, nil otherwise.
If you override this method, implement your own logic to determine if anything was extracted and return nil otherwise. Also, make sure calling this method multiple times returns the same result.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 957 def result() return self if @extracted end
Scrapes the document and returns the result.
If the scraper was created with a URL, retrieve the page and parse it. If the scraper was created with a string, parse the page.
The result is returned by calling the result method. The default implementation returns self if any extractor returned true, nil otherwise.
The method may raise any number of exceptions. HTTPError indicates it failed to retrieve the HTML page, and HTMLParseError that it failed to parse the page. Other exceptions come from extractors and the result method.
See also Base#scrape.
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 747 def scrape() # Call prepare with the document, but before doing anything else. prepare document # Retrieve the document. This may raise HTTPError or HTMLParseError. case document when Array stack = @document.reverse # see below when HTML::Node # If a root element is specified, start selecting from there. # The stack is empty if we can't find any root element (makes # sense). However, the node we're going to process may be # a tag, or an HTML::Document.root which is the equivalent of # a document fragment. root_element = option(:root_element) root = root_element ? @document.find(:tag=>root_element) : @document stack = root ? (root.tag? ? [root] : root.children.reverse) : [] else return end # @skip stores all the elements we want to skip (see #skip). # rules stores all the rules we want to process with this # scraper, based on the class definition. @skip = [] @stop = false rules = self.class.rules.clone begin # Process the document one node at a time. We process elements # from the end of the stack, so each time we visit child elements, # we add them to the end of the stack in reverse order. while node = stack.pop break if @stop skip_this = false # Only match nodes that are elements, ignore text nodes. # Also ignore any element that's on the skip list, and if # found one, remove it from the list (since we never visit # the same element twice). But an element may be added twice # to the skip list. # Note: equal? is faster than == for nodes. next unless node.tag? @skip.delete_if { |s| skip_this = true if s.equal?(node) } next if skip_this # Run through all the rules until we process the element or # run out of rules. If skip_this=true then we processed the # element and we can break out of the loop. However, we might # process (and skip) descedants so also watch the skip list. rules.delete_if do |selector, extractor, rule_name, first_only| break if skip_this # The result of calling match (selected) is nil, element # or array of elements. We turn it into an array to # process one element at a time. We process all elements # that are not on the skip list (we haven't visited # them yet). if selected = selector.match(node, first_only) selected = [selected] unless selected.is_a?(Array) selected = [selected.first] if first_only selected.each do |element| # Do not process elements we already skipped # (see above). However, this time we may visit # an element twice, since selected elements may # be descendants of the current element on the # stack. In rare cases two elements on the stack # may pick the same descendants. next if @skip.find { |s| s.equal?(element) } # Call the extractor method with this element. # If it returns true, skip the element and if # the current element, don't process any more # rules. Again, pay attention to descendants. if extractor.bind(self).call(element) @extracted = true end if @skip.delete(true) if element.equal?(node) skip_this = true else @skip << element end end end first_only if !selected.empty? end end # If we did not skip the element, we're going to process its # children. Reverse order since we're popping from the stack. if !skip_this && children = node.children stack.concat children.reverse end end ensure @skip = nil end collect return result end
Skips processing the specified element(s).
If called with a single element, that element will not be processed.
If called with an array of elements, all the elements in the array are skipped.
If called with no element, skips processing the current element. This has the same effect as returning true.
For convenience this method always returns true. For example:
process "h1" do |element| @header = element skip end
# File lib/scraper/base.rb, line 907 def skip(elements = nil) case elements when Array: @skip.concat elements when HTML::Node: @skip << elements when nil: @skip << true when true, false: @skip << elements end # Calling skip(element) as the last statement is # redundant by design. return true end
Generated with the Darkfish Rdoc Generator 2.