Practical Web
Scraping for
Data Science
Best Practices and Examples with Python
—
Seppe vanden Broucke
Bart Baesens
Practical Web Scraping
for Data Science
Best Practices and Examples
with Python
Seppevanden Broucke
BartBaesens
Practical Web Scraping for Data Science
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-3581-2 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-3582-9
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3582-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018940455
Copyright © 2018 by Seppe vanden Broucke and Bart Baesens
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Seppevanden Broucke
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BartBaesens
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Dedicated to our partners, kids and parents.
v
About the Authors ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ix
About the Technical Reviewer ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xi
Introduction ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii
Table of Contents
Part I: Web Scraping Basics ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1
Chapter 1: Introduction ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 3
1.1 What Is Web Scraping? .......................................................................................................... 3
1.1.1 Why Web Scraping forData Science?.......................................................................... 4
1.1.2 Who Is Using Web Scraping? ....................................................................................... 5
1.2 Getting Ready ......................................................................................................................... 8
1.2.1 Setting Up .................................................................................................................... 8
1.2.2 A Quick Python Primer ................................................................................................. 9
Chapter 2: The Web Speaks HTTP ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 25
2.1 The Magic ofNetworking ..................................................................................................... 25
2.2 The HyperText Transfer Protocol: HTTP ................................................................................ 28
2.3 HTTP inPython: TheRequests Library ................................................................................. 34
2.4 Query Strings: URLs withParameters .................................................................................. 39
Chapter 3: Stirring the HTML and CSS Soup ����������������������������������������������������������� 49
3.1 Hypertext Markup Language: HTML ..................................................................................... 49
3.2 Using Your Browser asaDevelopment Tool ......................................................................... 51
3.3 Cascading Style Sheets: CSS ............................................................................................... 56
3.4 The Beautiful Soup Library ................................................................................................... 61
3.5 More onBeautiful Soup ....................................................................................................... 72
