Node.js与Python解析HTML

Question

I am so sorry if this is a repeat. I saw something on it, and then I couldn't find it again.

To be more concrete than other entries, say I have:

<h1>Hey, there.</h1>

h1 {
  color: green
}

I want to change it to "blue". Can I do that more efficiently/with less code/more accurately/with less time using python or Node.js?

Say I have:

<h1>Hey, there1.</h1>

Is it easier to change "Hey, there1." to "Hey, there2." with Python or Node.js?

Also, say I have:

<h1>Hey, there.</h1> and want to add <a> tags so that it is:

<h1><a href="">Hey, there.</a></h1>

Those are the three cases I can think of. I am trying to turn a block of html tags and content into a differently organized/content/css'ed html.

I am not very familiar with either python or Javascript at the moment, and I don't want to trail down the wrong path from the beginning.

I am also thinking of doing a ton of find/replace statements, but that's not very elegant.

Thank you for any help/insight.

Answer 1

Luckily both python and node have nifty tools for that.

However, since you're just starting out, I agree that the question you should be asking is: "what do I want to learn from this?"

There is no point in choosing one over the other if your only goal is to just make a scraper/parser. Think about your long term goals and how you want to ultimately want to shape your skillsets.

That lecture aside, I'll point you in the nodejs direction since (I personally) think it's a much easier route, and as others have said, javascript is the language of the web so if you plan to do webdev/scraping/whatever in the future, it's very helpful.

Step one: nodeJS

install node as I am sure you already have ( https://nodejs.org/en/ ), make a nice little folder for this project, cd to the folder and run this:

npm init

it lets node know this is where you'll be working and it'll install your packages (when npm is called inside this dir) here.

Step two: the packages

you'll want to install a html parser with some nice features, I recommend cheerio since you'll get the best of learning a bit of jquery as well ( https://github.com/cheeriojs/cheerio )

npm install --save cheerio

Great, we have the start of a fun project!

Step three: main.js

Name it whatever you want, but lets make a .js file to get going with

let http    = require('http'),
    cheerio = require('cheerio');

//
// from cheerio docs
//
let $ = cheerio.load('<h2 class="title">Hello world</h2>')

$('h2.title').text('Hello there!')
$('h2').addClass('welcome')

$.html()
//=> <h2 class="title welcome">Hello there!</h2>

//console log some changes and see the change from Hello world to Hello there!
console.log($.html());

There's no right answer.

Pick whatever you think suits your goals.