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Simple Website Crawler (in python)

Simple Website Crawler

The following gist is an extract of the article Building a simple crawler. It allows crawling from a URL and for a given number of bounce.

Basic Usage

from crawler import Crawler
crawler = Crawler()
crawler.crawl('http://techcrunch.com/')
# displays the urls
print crawler.content['techcrunch.com'].keys()

Advanced Usage

The following is using a cache (in sqlalchemy, crawler.db) and crawl to a depth of 3 from the home page. The no_cache parameter prevent '/' to be cached, enforcing new pull of the homepage each time the crawler is launched.

import re
from crawler import Crawler, CrawlerCache
crawler = Crawler(CrawlerCache('crawler.db'), depth=3)
crawler.crawl('http://techcrunch.com/', no_cache=re.compile('^/$').match)
# displays the urls
print crawler.content['techcrunch.com'].keys()
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# filename: crawler.py
import sqlite3
import urllib2
from HTMLParser import HTMLParser
from urlparse import urlparse
class HREFParser(HTMLParser):
"""
Parser that extracts hrefs
"""
hrefs = set()
def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs):
if tag == 'a':
dict_attrs = dict(attrs)
if dict_attrs.get('href'):
self.hrefs.add(dict_attrs['href'])
def get_local_links(html, domain):
"""
Read through HTML content and returns a tuple of links
internal to the given domain
"""
hrefs = set()
parser = HREFParser()
parser.feed(html)
for href in parser.hrefs:
u_parse = urlparse(href)
if href.startswith('/'):
# purposefully using path, no query, no hash
hrefs.add(u_parse.path)
else:
# only keep the local urls
if u_parse.netloc == domain:
hrefs.add(u_parse.path)
return hrefs
class CrawlerCache(object):
"""
Crawler data caching per relative URL and domain.
"""
def __init__(self, db_file):
self.conn = sqlite3.connect(db_file)
c = self.conn.cursor()
c.execute('''CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS sites
(domain text, url text, content text)''')
self.conn.commit()
self.cursor = self.conn.cursor()
def set(self, domain, url, data):
"""
store the content for a given domain and relative url
"""
self.cursor.execute("INSERT INTO sites VALUES (?,?,?)",
(domain, url, data))
self.conn.commit()
def get(self, domain, url):
"""
return the content for a given domain and relative url
"""
self.cursor.execute("SELECT content FROM sites WHERE domain=? and url=?",
(domain, url))
row = self.cursor.fetchone()
if row:
return row[0]
def get_urls(self, domain):
"""
return all the URLS within a domain
"""
self.cursor.execute("SELECT url FROM sites WHERE domain=?", (domain,))
# could use fetchone and yield but I want to release
# my cursor after the call. I could have create a new cursor tho.
# ...Oh well
return [row[0] for row in self.cursor.fetchall()]
class Crawler(object):
def __init__(self, cache=None, depth=2):
"""
depth: how many time it will bounce from page one (optional)
cache: a basic cache controller (optional)
"""
self.depth = depth
self.content = {}
self.cache = cache
def crawl(self, url, no_cache=None):
"""
url: where we start crawling, should be a complete URL like
'http://www.intel.com/news/'
no_cache: function returning True if the url should be refreshed
"""
u_parse = urlparse(url)
self.domain = u_parse.netloc
self.content[self.domain] = {}
self.scheme = u_parse.scheme
self.no_cache = no_cache
self._crawl([u_parse.path], self.depth)
def set(self, url, html):
self.content[self.domain][url] = html
if self.is_cacheable(url):
self.cache.set(self.domain, url, html)
def get(self, url):
page = None
if self.is_cacheable(url):
page = self.cache.get(self.domain, url)
if page is None:
page = self.curl(url)
else:
print "cached url... [%s] %s" % (self.domain, url)
return page
def is_cacheable(self, url):
return self.cache and self.no_cache \
and not self.no_cache(url)
def _crawl(self, urls, max_depth):
n_urls = set()
if max_depth:
for url in urls:
# do not crawl twice the same page
if url not in self.content:
html = self.get(url)
self.set(url, html)
n_urls = n_urls.union(get_local_links(html, self.domain))
self._crawl(n_urls, max_depth-1)
def curl(self, url):
"""
return content at url.
return empty string if response raise an HTTPError (not found, 500...)
"""
try:
print "retrieving url... [%s] %s" % (self.domain, url)
req = urllib2.Request('%s://%s%s' % (self.scheme, self.domain, url))
response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
return response.read().decode('ascii', 'ignore')
except urllib2.HTTPError, e:
print "error [%s] %s: %s" % (self.domain, url, e)
return ''
#!/usr/bin/python
# filename: run.py
import re
from crawler import Crawler, CrawlerCache
if __name__ == "__main__":
# Using SQLite as a cache to avoid pulling twice
crawler = Crawler(CrawlerCache('crawler.db'))
root_re = re.compile('^/$').match
crawler.crawl('http://techcrunch.com/', no_cache=root_re)
crawler.crawl('http://www.engadget.com/', no_cache=root_re)
crawler.crawl('http://gizmodo.com/', no_cache=root_re)
crawler.crawl('http://www.zdnet.com/', no_cache=root_re)
crawler.crawl('http://www.wired.com/', no_cache=root_re)
@mirabella2017
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How to run the crawler.py program at the command prompt Can you help me
Can I show it in interface !?

@vasug30
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vasug30 commented Jul 27, 2017

hi,
i am getting the below as an error.Could you please help me through it.

[vgupta@localhost ~]$ python run.py
retrieving url... [techguru.com] /
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "run.py", line 7, in
crawler.crawl('http://techguru.com/',no_cache=root_re)
File "/home/vgupta/crawl.py", line 60, in crawl
self._crawl([u_parse.path],self.depth)
File "/home/vgupta/crawl.py", line 83, in _crawl
n_urls = n_urls.union(get_local_links(html,self.domain))
NameError: global name 'get_local_links' is not defined

@digitalstem
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I'm getting the following error plz help
and thanks in advance : )

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python27\lib\site.py", line 62, in
import os
File "C:\Python27\lib\os.py", line 400, in
import UserDict
File "C:\Python27\lib\UserDict.py", line 116, in
import _abcoll
File "C:\Python27\lib_abcoll.py", line 11, in
from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod
File "C:\Users\electronicpeople\PycharmProjects\Sample\abc.py", line 2, in
from crawler import Crawler, CrawlerCache
ImportError: No module named crawler

@digitalstem
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heyyya!

Anyone plz help with the following error it is very much urgent....

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python27\lib\site.py", line 62, in
import os
File "C:\Python27\lib\os.py", line 400, in
import UserDict
File "C:\Python27\lib\UserDict.py", line 116, in
import _abcoll
File "C:\Python27\lib_abcoll.py", line 11, in
from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod
File "C:\Users\electronicpeople\PycharmProjects\Sample\abc.py", line 2, in
from crawler import Crawler, CrawlerCache
ImportError: No module named crawler

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