demiurge

PyQuery-based scraping micro-framework. Supports Python 2.x and 3.x.

Documentation: http://demiurge.readthedocs.org

Installing demiurge

$ pip install demiurge

Quick start

Define items to be scraped using a declarative (Django-inspired) syntax:

import demiurge

class TorrentDetails(demiurge.Item):
    label = demiurge.TextField(selector='strong')
    value = demiurge.TextField()

    def clean_value(self, value):
        unlabel = value[value.find(':') + 1:]
        return unlabel.strip()

    class Meta:
        selector = 'div#specifications p'

class Torrent(demiurge.Item):
    url = demiurge.AttributeValueField(
        selector='td:eq(2) a:eq(1)', attr='href')
    name = demiurge.TextField(selector='td:eq(2) a:eq(2)')
    size = demiurge.TextField(selector='td:eq(3)')
    details = demiurge.RelatedItem(
        TorrentDetails, selector='td:eq(2) a:eq(2)', attr='href')

    class Meta:
        selector = 'table.maintable:gt(0) tr:gt(0)'
        base_url = 'http://www.mininova.org'


>>> t = Torrent.one('/search/ubuntu/seeds')
>>> t.name
'Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Live CD'
>>> t.size
u'695.81\xa0MB'
>>> t.url
'/get/1053846'
>>> t.html
u'<td>19\xa0Dec\xa007</td><td><a href="/cat/7">Software</a></td><td>...'

>>> results = Torrent.all('/search/ubuntu/seeds')
>>> len(results)
116
>>> for t in results[:3]:
...     print t.name, t.size
...
Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Live CD 695.81 MB
Super Ubuntu 2008.09 - VMware image 871.95 MB
Portable Ubuntu 9.10 for Windows 559.78 MB
...

>>> t = Torrent.one('/search/ubuntu/seeds')
>>> for detail in t.details:
...     print detail.label, detail.value
... 
Category: Software > GNU/Linux
Total size: 695.81 megabyte
Added: 2467 days ago by Distribution
Share ratio: 17 seeds, 2 leechers
Last updated: 35 minutes ago
Downloads: 29,085

See documentation for details: http://demiurge.readthedocs.org

Why demiurge?

Plato, as the speaker Timaeus, refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus, c. 360 BC. The main character refers to the Demiurge as the entity who "fashioned and shaped" the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent, and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world remains imperfect, however, because the Demiurge created the world out of a chaotic, indeterminate non-being.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge

Contributors

• Martín Gaitán (@mgaitan)