spextract 0.6.1

A declarative html scraper for python. Define your scraper spec in a yaml or json to extract data from html documents.

A Declarative HTML Scraper for Python

This package provides a simple way to declare what data should be extracted from an HTML document in a configuration file.

This enables sharing of scraping logic across projects and teams without the risk of executing untrusted code. It also allows for easier maintenance and updates to scraping logic without needing to modify the underlying codebase.

CLI

The package includes a Click-based CLI with two commands:

decs parse spec.yaml <path to html file or directory>
decs validate spec.yaml expected-results.yaml

parse emits YAML in the same expected-results format used by validate, so you can capture known-good output and re-run validation later.

How to use

Build a configuration file

You can write a configuration file with the provided ParserSpec class.

import py_decs

spec = py_decs.ParserSpec(
    name="example_parser",
    description="An example parser for demonstration purposes.",
    fields=[
        py_decs.FieldSpec(
            name="title",
            selector="h1.title::text",
            type=py_decs.FieldType.TEXT,
        ),
        py_decs.FieldSpec(
            name="links",
            selector="a.link::attr(href)",
            type=py_decs.FieldType.LINK,
            multiple=True,
        )
        py_decs.FieldSpec(
            name="author",
            selector="div.author",
            type=py_decs.FieldType.OBJECT,
            fields=[
                py_decs.FieldSpec(
                    name="name",
                    selector="span.name::text",
                    type=py_decs.FieldType.TEXT,
                ),
                py_decs.FieldSpec(
                    name="profile_url",
                    selector="a.profile::attr(href)",
                    type=py_decs.FieldType.LINK,
                ),
            ]
        ),
    ]
)