Python script allowing to extract some metrics from a google citation page

google_citation_export.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

"""Python script to extract citations numbers from google citation pages

Extract informations from google citation (number of citations, h-index, i10 index).
The main program outputs LaTeX definition in order to automatically use the result
in a LaTeX document (ie. academic cv)
"""

# imports
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import httplib, sys

HEADERS = {'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT)'}


def extract_information_for(user):
    """Extract the information for the required user.
    
    Parameters
    ==========
     - user: str
     Code of the user of google citation
    """

    conn = httplib.HTTPConnection('scholar.google.co.uk' )
    conn.request("GET", '/citations?user=%s' % user, {}, HEADERS)
    resp = conn.getresponse()
    if resp.status == 200:

        # Dowload stuff
        html = resp.read()
        html = html.decode( 'ascii', 'ignore' )
        soup = BeautifulSoup( html, 'html5lib' )

        # Search interesting part
        for record in soup('table', {'id':'stats'}):
            # TODO cleanup this part
            pointer = record.next_element.next_element.next_sibling.next_element.next_sibling
            nb_citations = pointer.text
            pointer = record.next_element.next_element.next_sibling.next_sibling.next_element.next_sibling
            h_index = pointer.text
            pointer = record.next_element.next_element.next_sibling.next_sibling.next_sibling.next_element.next_sibling
            i10_index = pointer.text
            break
        
        return int(nb_citations), int(h_index), int(i10_index)
    else:
        print 'Error: '
        print resp.status, resp.reason
        exit(-1)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
        user = 'bwwARrQAAAAJ'
    else:
        user = sys.argv[1]


    # Build a latex content
    nb_citations, h_index, i10_index = extract_information_for(user)

    print "\def\scholarnbcitations{%d}" % nb_citations
    print "\def\scholarhindex{%d}" % h_index
    print "\def\scholaritenindex{%d}" % i10_index