scraperbelt

0.2.3 • Public • Published

#Scraperbelt.js ##Scraping toolkit for Node.js

Scraperbelt.js is an open-source toolbelt containing utilities for screen-scraping in Node.js, it's goal is to facilitate common scraping tasks.

##Current status Scraperbelt.js is currently a work in progress, right now it consists in very few (but useful) tools for scraping.

What is it useful for?

Drying the request building process and DOM parsing.

Documentation

You can find the complete annotated source here

Usage

Scraperbelt.js can be easily installed via npm:

npm install scraperbelt

Requiring and instancing:

var Scraperbelt = require('scraperbelt');
var sb = new Scraperbelt();

If you are using mikeal's Request then Scraperbelt's options template builder is just what you need. This utility can be found under the sb.http namespace.

Getting an options object

var http = require('request');

var opts = sb.http.options();
// Returns:
//
//  {
//    followRedirect: true,
//    headers: {
//      'User-Agent': '',
//      Connection: 'Keep-Alive',
//      'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip,deflate',
//      'Cache-Control': 'no-cache'
//    }
//  }

// Set request url
opts.url = 'http://www.google.com';

// Ready to go
http.get(opts, function(err, res, body){
  // ... //
});

By default sb.http.options() will return an options object with the attributes displayed above

Modifying our template object:

// Modify some fields on the current template
sb.http.options({followRedirect: false, headers: {'User-Agent': 'Foo', 'Something': 'Bar' }});

// Retrieve our options object
sb.http.options();

// Returns:
//
//  {
//    followRedirect: false,
//    headers: {
//      'User-Agent': 'Foo',
//      Connection: 'Keep-Alive',
//      'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip,deflate',
//      'Cache-Control': 'no-cache',
//      'Something': 'Bar'
//    }
//  }

When passing an object to sb.http.options the current template is merged with the attributes of the object passed.

Replacing our template object:

var myTemplate = {
  followRedirect: true,
  headers: {
    'User-Agent': 'Bobby Jackson',
    'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip,deflate'
  }
  form: {
    'user': 'mrFoo',
    'password': 'Barman'
  }
}

// Replace template
sb.http.options(myTemplate, true);

// Get current template
var opts = sb.http.options();

// Returns:
//
//  {
//    followRedirect: true,
//    headers: {
//      'User-Agent': 'Bobby Jackson',
//      'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip,deflate'
//    }
//    form: {
//      'user': 'mrFoo',
//      'password': 'Barman'
//    }
//  }

In the previous example we are adding a second parameter to sb.http.options() which specifies if the current template should be overwritten.

Restarting our template:

var myTemplate = {'we': 'messed up'};

sb.http.options(myTemplate);

sb.http.options();
// Returns overwritten template:
//
// {'we', 'messed up'}

// Reset template to default
sb.http.options(null);

sb.http.options();

// Returns default template again:
//
//  {
//    followRedirect: true,
//    headers: {
//      'User-Agent': '',
//      Connection: 'Keep-Alive',
//      'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip,deflate',
//      'Cache-Control': 'no-cache'
//    }
//  }

Another cool feature is parsing javascript from the dom. You see, sometimes you will need variables that are declared inside a <script> tag, which forces you to do string handling. To avoid this you can use sb.dom.getJsVars (yes, name could change), this function receives a jQuery object and returns an object with all the variables declared inside the <script> tag (except ones declared inside functions for now).

var $jsTag = $('script');
var variables = sb.dom.getJsVars($jsTag);

##Contribute Feel free to submit your ideas, fixes, requests and enhancements.

##Current status Stable, under development and accepting pull-requests

##About the author My name is Rafael Vidaurre, I'm building a little page about myself you can find here. Drop me a line at narzerus@gmail.com

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Install

npm i scraperbelt

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Version

0.2.3

License

MIT

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Collaborators

  • narzerus