Scroll-Scraper

Python library for automating scrolling and downloading web pages via Selenium. This is especially useful for pages that utilize infinite scrolling.

Usage

Using ChromeDriver

Download ChromeDriver from https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads. Choose the version that matches the Chrome browser running on your system.

Using GeckoDriver for Firefox

Download GeckoDriver for Firefox from https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases.

Install Package

Install the package by running pip install tq-scroll-scrape.

Use the Package

Here is sample code demonstrating how to download a page:

from tq_scroll_scrape.scroll_and_scrape import ScrollAndScrape

url = "https://www.espn.com/"
driver_path = "{PATH TO DRIVER EXECUTABLE}"
scroll_scraper = ScrollAndScrape(driver_path)
scroll_scraper.download(url)
scroll_scraper.driver.close()
scroll_scraper.driver.quit()

This library will scroll the page until it reaches the end. The scroll height can be controlled by passing the scroll_by kwarg. If omitted the value of document.body.scrollHeight is used.

To give items the chance to render, the library will wait before scrolling again. The wait time can be controlled via the sleep_after_scroll_seconds parameter. If omitted, the default value is two seconds.

The example below scrolls the page by 500 pixels, waiting 5 seconds between each scroll.

from tq_scroll_scrape.scroll_and_scrape import ScrollAndScrape

driver_path = "{PATH TO DRIVER EXECUTABLE}"
scroll_scraper = ScrollAndScrape(driver_path)
downloader.download(url, sleep_after_scroll_seconds=5, scroll_by=500)
downloader.driver.close()
downloader.driver.quit()

Post-download Processing

The download function accepts a callback that executes after the page is downloaded. The page source is passed into the callback. The example below saves the downloaded page to an html file.

from tq_scroll_scrape.scroll_and_scrape import ScrollAndScrape


def save_file(source: str):
    with open("espn.html", "w") as file:
        file.write(source)


url = "https://www.espn.com/"
driver_path = "{PATH TO DRIVER EXECUTABLE}"
scroll_scraper = ScrollAndScrape(driver_path)
downloader.download(url, save_file)
downloader.driver.close()
downloader.driver.quit()