Semalt Expert Defines The Steps For Web Scraping With Javascript Using Jquery And Regex
While it is easy just to use the jQuery to fetch data from a website API's, not all sites have a public API that you can simply grab the information you need from. For this reason, you might want to find the next option which is web scrapping. Here is the process of using client-side web scrapping with JavaScript using jQuery and Regex. Web scraping actually makes it unnecessary to use the website APIs since you get all data that you want. For APIs, you might be required to login which can make it easy for you to be traced back.
Using the jQuery .get request, grab the full page HTML. The whole page source code will be logged to the console. You may get an error at this stage of access denial, but you should not worry as there is a solution. The code requests the page just like a browser would do, but instead of the page display, you get the HTML code.
The yield might not be directly what you want, but the information is in the code that you have grabbed. To get the data that you want, use the jQuery method like .find (). To load the whole page into external scripts, fonts and style sheets, turn the response into a jQuery object. However, you might only need some bits of data and not the whole page and the external data. Use Regex to find for script patterns in the text and eliminate them. Still, you can use Regex to select the data that you are interested in.
Regex is important in matching all types of patterns in strings and for searching for data in the response. By use of the Regex code generated above, you can strip out any data file format. It would be much easier if the data that you need is in plain text.
Challenges That You Might Face and How to Handle Them
Cross-origin resources sharing (CORS) is a real challenge within client-side web scrapping. Web scrapping is restricted as it is considered illegal in some cases. For security reasons, cross-origin HTTP requests from within scripts are restrained which results in the CORS error. By use of cross-domain tools such as all originals, cross-origin, Whatever Origin, Any origin and others, you can achieve your objective.
Another problem that you can face is rate limiting. Even though most public websites have no more than Captcha as a defense against automated access, you might run into a site that has rate limits. Here, you can use several IPs to overcome the limitation.
Some sites have software meant to stop web scrapers. Depending on how strong they are, you can find yourself in a mess. You may have to look for some information to avoid running into problems.
Some resources are allowed from a foreign domain for sites that allow cross-origin sharing including CSS style sheets, images, and scripts, video, audio, plugins, fonts, and frames.
The three steps can help you scrap data from any website:
I. Use client-side JavaScript.
II. Use jQuery to scrape data.
III. Use Regex to filter data for the required information.
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