Stories from the Web Crawling trenches in HTML

Web Scraping using ChatGPT - Complete Guide with Examples

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping using ChatGPT: extract data from websites using code. ChatGPT is a powerful tool for web scraping. Techniques include using Selenium and Beautiful Soup. Get started now!

The Ultimate Nokogiri Cheat Sheet for Ruby

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 31, 2023

Nokogiri is a powerful HTML/XML parsing and scraping library for Ruby. This cheat sheet covers its extensive capabilities.

The Ultimate Loofah Cheatsheet for Ruby

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Nov 4, 2023

Loofah is a Ruby library for parsing and manipulating HTML/XML documents. It provides a simple API for traversing, manipulating, and extracting data from markup. It also offers XSS sanitization and integrates with Rails. Loofah is built on top of Nokogiri, providing speed and Ruby idioms.

Scrape Any Website with OpenAI Function Calling in PHP

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping with OpenAI in PHP allows for resilient data extraction from websites, adapting to changes in HTML structure. Extracted product data can be processed and stored.

A Guide to Using XPath with BeautifulSoup for Powerful Web Scraping

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

XPath is a powerful querying language for selecting elements in XML and HTML documents, making web scraping with BeautifulSoup more robust and flexible.

The Ultimate Floki Cheatsheet for Elixir

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 31, 2023

Floki makes it easy to parse and query HTML documents in Elixir using CSS selectors and tree traversal.

Introduction to Web Scraping with BeautifulSoup

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

Web scraping is the process of extracting data from websites through an automated procedure. Beautiful Soup is a Python library designed specifically for web scraping purposes. It provides parsing and navigation tools for extracting data from HTML and XML documents.

The Ultimate Rvest Cheatsheet in R

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 31, 2023

rvest is a package in R for web scraping and data extraction from HTML using CSS selectors. It also provides functions for parsing and navigating HTML documents. Additional features include handling issues, advanced usage with RSelenium, best practices, troubleshooting, and tips and tricks. The package is useful for scraping websites ethically and efficiently, processing extracted data, and handling large datasets.

The Ultimate HTML::TreeBuilder Cheatsheet in Perl

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 31, 2023

HTML::TreeBuilder is a Perl module for parsing and manipulating HTML and XML documents into a tree structure.

Formatting HTML with BeautifulSoup's prettify()

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

The prettify() method in BeautifulSoup is used for formatting and printing HTML in a more readable way, making it easier to debug and visually inspect during web scraping.

Finding Headers in BeautifulSoup

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

When parsing HTML and XML documents, accessing and working with headers is a common task. Understanding header tags in BeautifulSoup is important for efficient parsing and processing of documents.

The Ultimate DOMDocument Cheat Sheet for PHP

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 31, 2023

DOMDocument allows manipulating HTML/XML documents in PHP. This cheat sheet is a comprehensive reference for working with DOMDocument.

Downloading Images from a Website with Java and JSoup

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 15, 2023

Learn how to use Java and JSoup to download images from a Wikipedia page, extract data from HTML tables, and overcome challenges in web scraping using proxies.

A Comprehensive Guide to Searching with CSS Selectors and Attributes in BeautifulSoup

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

The BeautifulSoup library provides powerful techniques for searching and extracting data from HTML and XML documents using CSS selectors. Mastering these techniques will enhance web scraping and parsing capabilities.

What is the difference between Python ElementTree and BeautifulSoup?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

ElementTree is best for working with valid XML documents, while BeautifulSoup is designed for parsing potentially malformed real-world HTML.

Loading HTML Files into BeautifulSoup for Web Scraping

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

BeautifulSoup makes it straightforward to load HTML for parsing and extraction. Use Python's built-in html.parser or choose others like lxml or html5lib. Selenium may be needed for dynamic pages.

Find the text of the given tag using BeautifulSoup

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

The get_text() method in Python BeautifulSoup library is useful for extracting text from HTML and XML documents. It strips HTML tags, handles whitespace and nested tags, and ignores invisible text.

Web Scraping in CSharp - The Ultimate Guide

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Mar 24, 2024

Learn web scraping with C# using powerful libraries like HtmlAgilityPack and AngleSharp. Understand the importance of XPath and CSS selectors for extracting data from HTML. Overcome challenges like dynamic content and anti-scraping measures. Rotate user agents and headers to mimic human behavior and avoid detection.

The Ultimate JSoup Kotlin Cheatsheet

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 31, 2023

JSoup is a Java library for working with real-world HTML. It provides a convenient API for extracting and manipulating data from HTML documents.

CSS Selectors vs XPath with BeautifulSoup: How to Choose the Right Selector

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

CSS selectors and XPath expressions are powerful techniques for parsing and extracting data from HTML and XML. CSS selectors offer simplicity and readability, while XPath provides unmatched query power and flexibility. Combining both can give you a robust toolkit for efficient data extraction.

Troubleshooting Python Requests Returning HTML Instead of JSON

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 3, 2024

When working with APIs in Python, it is important to handle authentication, set the Accept header, and monitor for HTML responses to ensure JSON data is returned.

Scrape Any Website with OpenAI Function Calling in C++

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping with OpenAI in C++ allows for resilient data extraction from websites using function calling.

Downloading Images from a Website with Rust and scraper

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 15, 2023

Learn how to use Rust and the reqwest and scraper crates to download all the images from a Wikipedia page.

How to Scrape All the Images from a Website with C++

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Dec 13, 2023

Scraping and downloading images from a website using C++ libraries like libcurl and libxml2. Requires HTML, CSS, and programming knowledge.

Scrape Any Website with OpenAI Function Calling in Ruby

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping with OpenAI in Ruby allows for resilient data extraction from HTML using function calling.

Scraping Hidden Emails with Python Web Scraping

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 3, 2024

Email addresses are often hidden on websites. Python web scraping with BeautifulSoup and re module can help uncover hidden emails.

Can BeautifulSoup use XPath?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

BeautifulSoup and XPath can complement each other to create powerful web scrapers, but be mindful of the performance tradeoff.

Scrape Any Website with OpenAI Function Calling in CSharp

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping with OpenAI in C# allows for resilient data extraction from websites using natural language processing.

The Ultimate JSoup Scala Cheatsheet

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 31, 2023

JSoup is a Java library for working with real-world HTML. It provides a convenient API for extracting and manipulating data from HTML documents.

What are the limitations of BeautifulSoup?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

BeautifulSoup is a Python library for parsing and extracting data from HTML and XML documents. It struggles with modern JavaScript sites and cannot bypass most bot protections. CSS selectors and navigation logic can get complex. Consider alternatives like Scrapy, Puppeteer, or Playwright for professional web scraping.

Scrape Websites with OpenAI Function Calling in JavaScript

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping with OpenAI allows for resilient data extraction from websites using JavaScript. It leverages natural language processing to handle changes in HTML structure. This article provides a code example for scraping product data from an ecommerce website.

Web Scraping with Visual Basic & ChatGPT

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Visual Basic provides a straightforward way to build web scrapers. ChatGPT is an AI assistant that can explain concepts and generate VB code for scraping.

Can BeautifulSoup parse XML?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Beautiful Soup is a Python library for parsing HTML and XML documents. It can parse XML documents with some limitations. For more advanced XML capabilities, consider using Python's built-in XML libraries or third-party libraries like lxml.

Scrape Any Website with OpenAI Function Calling in Scala

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping with OpenAI in Scala to extract product data from HTML using function calling.

A Guide to BeautifulSoup's CSS Selector Capabilities

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

The BeautifulSoup library supports searching and extracting elements from HTML and XML documents using CSS selectors, making it a powerful tool for web scraping.

Scraping Yelp Business Listings with PHP

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Dec 6, 2023

Web scraping guide for extracting data from Yelp business listings using PHP and XPath.

Scraping Wikipedia With Ruby

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Dec 6, 2023

Wikipedia web scraping using Ruby's Nokogiri library to extract structured data from HTML tables.

Scraping Real Estate Listings From Realtor in Node.js

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Jan 9, 2024

Code to extract real estate listing data from Realtor.com for properties in San Francisco using Axios and Cheerio.

Scraping Real Estate Listings From Realtor in R

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Jan 9, 2024

Scrape real estate listing data from Realtor.com using R and the rvest and stringr packages.

Leveraging next_sibling in BeautifulSoup for Web Scraping

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

When scraping web pages, BeautifulSoup provides an easy way to extract the next element following a current tag using the .next_sibling attribute. It is useful for getting text after a heading, looping through table rows, and extracting field labels and values.

Who wrote BeautifulSoup?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

The Origins of BeautifulSoup: Mark Pilgrim's Powerful Web Scraping Library. Created in 2004, BeautifulSoup is a popular and powerful library for web scraping and handling HTML/XML in Python.

Scrape Any Website with OpenAI Function Calling in Perl

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 25, 2023

Web scraping with OpenAI in Perl to extract product data from HTML using function calling.

Scraping Reddit Posts in Perl

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Jan 9, 2024

Scraping Reddit using Perl to extract information from posts by parsing HTML and using UserAgent for data extraction.

Downloading Images from a Website with R and rvest

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 15, 2023

Learn how to use R and the rvest package to download images from a Wikipedia page. Extract data from HTML tables and download images using proxies for efficient scraping.

Difference Between find() and find_all() in BeautifulSoup

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

The find() and find_all() methods in Python BeautifulSoup library are used for searching and extracting elements from HTML and XML documents. find() returns the first matching element, while find_all() returns a list of all matching elements.

How to SCRAPE DYNAMIC Websites with Selenium

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 4, 2023

Web scraping dynamic websites with Selenium for automation and data extraction. Consider using ProxiesAPI for robust and scalable commercial scraping projects.

Which language is best for web scraping?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Best languages for web scraping: Python, JavaScript, and R. They provide the best libraries and balance for most web scraping needs.

Scraping Booking.com Property Listings in Visual Basic in 2023

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 15, 2023

Learn how to scrape property listings from Booking.com using Visual Basic and HtmlAgilityPack. Use HttpClient to fetch HTML content and extract details like property name, location, ratings. Scale your web scraping with Proxies API.

Scraping New York Times News Headlines using Kotlin

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Dec 6, 2023

The New York Times homepage can be scraped programmatically using Python and JSoup to extract article titles and links.

Smartproxy Alternative - Simplify Web Scraping with ProxiesAPI

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 30, 2023

ProxiesAPI simplifies web scraping with easy pricing, unlimited bandwidth, and built-in features like CAPTCHA solving. No need for complex proxy plans or integrations.

Is BeautifulSoup free?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Beautiful Soup is a free and open source Python library used for web scraping. It can handle messy HTML, easily find elements, and extract data. Install it using pip and add it to your developer toolkit!

Scraping Reddit Posts with R

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Jan 9, 2024

Scrape data from Reddit posts using R code, handling responses, extracting information, and iterating through multiple posts.

Importing BeautifulSoup in Python

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

The first step in any BeautifulSoup web scraping script is importing the module and initializing the soup object to parse the HTML content.

What are the three types of scrapers?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 22, 2024

Web scraping refers to automatically extracting data from websites using DOM parsing, headless browser automation, or web scraping services.

Is BeautifulSoup a library or module?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

BeautifulSoup is a library in Python for parsing, navigating, and searching HTML and XML documents.

Why is it called BeautifulSoup?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

BeautifulSoup is a popular Python library for web scraping and parsing HTML and XML documents, bringing structure to messy markup.

What is BeautifulSoup 4?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Web scraping is the process of extracting data from websites using Python's BeautifulSoup library, which provides methods to parse and search HTML and XML documents. It is popular due to its simplicity and extensive features.

Is it easy to learn web scraping?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Web scraping made easy with Python or JavaScript. Understand website structure, leverage libraries, and problem solve for rewarding data extraction.

Is Scrapy faster than BeautifulSoup?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Scrapy is a faster dedicated web scraping framework while BeautifulSoup excels at parsing HTML/XML.

Is BeautifulSoup good for web scraping?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

BeautifulSoup is the leading Python web scraping library, with an intuitive API for parsing HTML. It struggles with JavaScript-heavy sites, so use proxies and mimic humans. Try it for your next project!

Parsing XML with BeautifulSoup

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

BeautifulSoup can parse and extract data from XML and HTML documents, making it useful for scraping and analyzing data. It can navigate and search the parsed tree, modify the tree, and output the modified XML. It can also convert a BeautifulSoup XML object back into a string and perform additional processing. Examples demonstrate parsing XML files, displaying extracted data in tables using Pandas, and saving extracted data to CSV files.

Is BeautifulSoup or Selenium better?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Selenium vs BeautifulSoup: choose the right tool for web scraping based on the complexity of the site and the presence of dynamic content.

Scraping eBay Listings with Ruby and Nokogiri in 2023

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 5, 2023

eBay is a large online marketplace. This tutorial explains how to scrape and extract data from eBay listings using Ruby and Nokogiri.

Scraping Booking.com Property Listings in Ruby in 2023

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 15, 2023

Learn how to scrape property listings from Booking.com using Ruby, Nokogiri, and OpenURI libraries. Use proxies for scaling web scraping.

Is BeautifulSoup lxml or HTML?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

BeautifulSoup is a popular Python library for parsing HTML and XML documents. It doesn't parse documents itself, but uses other parsers like lxml and html.parser. It provides methods for navigating, searching, and modifying parsed document trees.

Scraping All Images from a Website with Scala

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Dec 13, 2023

Learn how to use Scala and Jsoup to scrape images from a website. Make HTTP requests, extract data from HTML, and download images.

Do I need to learn HTML for web scraping?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 20, 2024

HTML knowledge is useful but not necessary for web scraping. Tools like BeautifulSoup and selector gadgets can be used to extract data without deep HTML knowledge.

Using BeautifulSoup and Requests for Powerful Web Scraping

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Oct 6, 2023

Requests and BeautifulSoup are two Python libraries that complement each other beautifully for web scraping purposes. They provide a powerful toolkit for extracting data from websites.

Why is it called web scraping?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Web scraping refers to automated extraction of data from websites. It involves scraping semi-structured data from HTML in a programmatic way. Web scraping is used for price monitoring, lead generation, research, and more.

Is BeautifulSoup easy to learn?

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Feb 5, 2024

Web scraping with BeautifulSoup is a valuable skill for data scientists and Python developers. It's beginner-friendly and has convenient methods for extracting data. Learning CSS selectors is necessary for effective use.

Guide to Scraping Reddit Posts in Objective C

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Jan 9, 2024

Parsing through an unfamiliar code base can be intimidating for beginner programmers. In this article, we'll walk step-by-step through a sample program that scrapes posts from Reddit using HTML parsing and XPath selectors.

ScrapingRobot Alternative - Simplify Web Scraping with ProxiesAPI

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Sep 30, 2023

ProxiesAPI simplifies web scraping with easy pricing and delivers clean HTML from any webpage with one API call.

Scraping Real Estate Listings From Realtor in Scala

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Jan 9, 2024

Learn how to extract key details from real estate listings on Realtor.com using Jsoup, a Java library for web scraping.

Scraping Yelp Business Listings using CSharp

Author: Mohan Ganesan

Date: Dec 6, 2023

Yelp is a popular review site with over 200 million reviews. This article explains how to scrape Yelp using proxies and HTML parsing with XPath.

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