493 lines
18 KiB
ReStructuredText
493 lines
18 KiB
ReStructuredText
With Python
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===========
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.. meta::
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:description lang=en:
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This tutorial focuses on text extraction from web pages with Python code snippets.
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Data mining with this library encompasses HTML parsing and language identification.
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The Python programming language
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-------------------------------
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Python can be easy to pick up whether you're a first time programmer or you're experienced with other languages:
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- Official `Python Tutorial <https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/>`_
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- `The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python <https://docs.python-guide.org/>`_
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- `The Best Python Tutorials (freeCodeCamp) <https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/best-python-tutorial/>`_
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Step-by-step
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------------
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Quickstart
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^^^^^^^^^^
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For the basics see `quickstart documentation page <quickstart.html>`_.
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.. note::
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For a hands-on tutorial see also the Python Notebook `Trafilatura Overview <https://github.com/adbar/trafilatura/blob/master/docs/Trafilatura_Overview.ipynb>`_.
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Extraction functions
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The functions can be imported using ``from trafilatura import ...`` and used on raw documents (strings) or parsed HTML (LXML elements).
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Main text extraction, good balance between precision and recall:
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- ``extract``: Wrapper function, easiest way to perform text extraction and conversion
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- ``bare_extraction``: Internal function returning bare Python variables
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Additional fallback functions:
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- ``baseline``: Faster extraction function targeting text paragraphs and/or JSON metadata
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- ``html2txt``: Extract all text in a document, maximizing recall
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Output
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^^^^^^
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By default, the output is in plain text (TXT) format without metadata. The following additional formats are available:
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- CSV
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- HTML (from version 1.11 onwards)
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- JSON
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- Markdown (from version 1.9 onwards)
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- XML and XML-TEI (following the guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative)
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To specify the output format, use one of the following strings: ``"csv", "json", "html", "markdown", "txt", "xml", "xmltei"``.
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The ``bare_extraction`` function also accepts an additional ``python`` format to work with Python on the output.
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To extract and include metadata in the output, use the ``with_metadata=True`` argument.
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Examples
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~~~~~~~~
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.. code-block:: python
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# some formatting preserved in basic XML structure
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>>> extract(downloaded, output_format="xml")
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# output in JSON format with metadata extracted
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>>> extract(downloaded, output_format="json", with_metadata=True)
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Note that combining TXT, CSV and JSON formats with certain structural elements (e.g. formatting or links) triggers output in Markdown format (plain text with additional elements).
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Choice of HTML elements
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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Customize the extraction process by including or excluding specific HTML elements:
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- Text elements:
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``include_comments=True``
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Include comment sections at the bottom of articles.
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``include_tables=True``
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Extract text from HTML ``<table>`` elements.
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- Structural elements:
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``include_formatting=True``
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Keep structural elements related to formatting (``<b>``/``<strong>``, ``<i>``/``<emph>`` etc.)
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``include_links=True``
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Keep link targets (in ``href="..."``)
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``include_images=True``
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Keep track of images along with their targets (``<img>`` attributes: alt, src, title)
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To operate on these elements, pass the corresponding parameters to the ``extract()`` function:
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.. code-block:: python
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# exclude comments from the output
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>>> result = extract(downloaded, include_comments=False)
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# skip tables and include links in the output
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>>> result = extract(downloaded, include_tables=False, include_links=True)
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# convert relative links to absolute links where possible
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>>> extract(downloaded, output_format='xml', include_links=True, url=url)
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Important notes
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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- ``include_comments`` and ``include_tables`` are activated by default.
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- Including extra elements works best with conversion to XML formats or using ``bare_extraction()``. This allows for direct display and manipulation of the elements.
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- Certain elements may not be visible in the output if the chosen format does not allow it.
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- Selecting Markdown automatically includes text formatting.
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.. hint::
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The heuristics used by the main algorithm change according to the presence of certain elements in the HTML. If the output seems odd, try removing a constraint (e.g. formatting) to improve the result.
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The precision and recall presets
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The main extraction functions offer two presets to adjust to focus of the extraction process: ``favor_precision`` and ``favor_recall``.
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These parameters allow you to change the balance between accuracy and comprehensiveness of the output.
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> result = extract(downloaded, url, favor_precision=True)
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Precision
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~~~~~~~~~
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- If your results contain too much noise, prioritize precision to focus on the most central and relevant elements.
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- Additionally, you can use the ``prune_xpath`` parameter to target specific HTML elements using a list of XPath expressions.
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Recall
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~~~~~~
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- If parts of your documents are missing, try this preset to take more elements into account.
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- If content is still missing, refer to the `troubleshooting guide <troubleshooting.html>`_.
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Additional functions for text extraction
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The ``html2txt`` and ``baseline`` functions offer simpler approaches to extracting text from HTML content, prioritizing performance over precision.
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html2txt()
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~~~~~~~~~~
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The ``html2txt`` function serves as a last resort for extracting text from HTML content. It emulates the behavior of similar functions in other packages and can be used to output all possible text from a given HTML source, maximizing recall. However, it may not always produce accurate or meaningful results, as it does not consider the context of the extracted sections.
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> from trafilatura import html2txt
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>>> html2txt(downloaded)
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baseline()
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~~~~~~~~~~
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For a better balance between precision and recall, as well as improved performance, consider using the ``baseline`` function instead. This function returns a tuple containing an LXML element with the body, the extracted text as a string, and the length of the text. It uses a set of heuristics to extract text from the HTML content, which generally produces more accurate results than ``html2txt``.
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> from trafilatura import baseline
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>>> postbody, text, len_text = baseline(downloaded)
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For more advanced use cases, consider using other functions in the package that provide more control and customization over the text extraction process.
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Guessing if text can be found
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The function ``is_probably_readerable()`` has been ported from Mozilla's Readability.js, it is available from version 1.10 onwards and provides a way to guess if a page probably has a main text to extract.
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> from trafilatura.readability_lxml import is_probably_readerable
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>>> is_probably_readerable(html) # HTML string or already parsed tree
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Language identification
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The target language can also be set using 2-letter codes (ISO 639-1), there will be no output if the detected language of the result does not match and no such filtering if the identification component has not been installed (see above `installation instructions <installation.html>`_) or if the target language is not available.
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> result = extract(downloaded, url, target_language="de")
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.. note::
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Additional components are required: ``pip install trafilatura[all]``.
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This feature currently uses the `py3langid package <https://github.com/adbar/py3langid>`_ and is dependent on language availability and performance of the original model.
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Optimizing for speed
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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Execution speed not only depends on the platform and on supplementary packages (``trafilatura[all]``, ``htmldate[speed]``), but also on the extraction strategy.
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The available fallbacks make extraction more precise but also slower. The use of fallback algorithms can also be bypassed in *fast* mode, which should make extraction about twice as fast:
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.. code-block:: python
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# skip algorithms used as fallback
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>>> result = extract(downloaded, no_fallback=True)
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The following combination usually leads to shorter processing times:
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> result = extract(downloaded, include_comments=False, include_tables=False, no_fallback=True)
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Extraction settings
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-------------------
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.. hint::
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See also `settings page <settings.html>`_.
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Function parameters
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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Starting from version 1.9, the ``Extractor`` class provides a convenient way to define and manage extraction parameters. It allows users to customize all options used by the extraction functions and offers a convenient shortcut compared to multiple function parameters.
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Here is how to use the class:
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.. code-block:: python
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# import the Extractor class from the settings module
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>>> from trafilatura.settings import Extractor
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# set multiple options at once
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>>> options = Extractor(output_format="json", with_metadata=True)
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# add or adjust settings as needed
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>>> options.formatting = True # same as include_formatting
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>>> options.source = "My Source" # useful for debugging
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# use the options in an extraction function
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>>> extract(my_doc, options=options)
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See the ``settings.py`` file for a full example.
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Metadata extraction
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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- ``with_metadata=True``: extract metadata fields and include them in the output
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- ``only_with_metadata=True``: only output documents featuring all essential metadata (date, title, url)
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Date
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~~~~
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Among metadata extraction, dates are handled by an external module: `htmldate <https://github.com/adbar/htmldate>`_. By default, focus is on original dates and the extraction replicates the *fast/no_fallback* option.
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`Custom parameters <https://htmldate.readthedocs.io/en/latest/corefunctions.html#handling-date-extraction>`_ can be passed through the extraction function or through the ``extract_metadata`` function in ``trafilatura.metadata``, most notably:
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- ``extensive_search`` (boolean), to activate further heuristics (higher recall, lower precision)
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- ``original_date`` (boolean) to look for the original publication date,
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- ``outputformat`` (string), to provide a custom datetime format,
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- ``max_date`` (string), to set the latest acceptable date manually (YYYY-MM-DD format).
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.. code-block:: python
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# import the extract() function, use a previously downloaded document
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# pass the new parameters as dict
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>>> extract(downloaded, output_format="xml", date_extraction_params={
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"extensive_search": True, "max_date": "2018-07-01"
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})
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URL
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~~~
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Even if the page to process has already been downloaded it can still be useful to pass the URL as an argument. See this `previous bug <https://github.com/adbar/trafilatura/issues/75>`_ for an example:
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.. code-block:: python
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# define a URL and download the example
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>>> url = "https://web.archive.org/web/20210613232513/https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2021/05/19/another-by-election-headache-is-incoming-for-keir-starmer/"
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>>> downloaded = fetch_url(url)
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# content discarded since necessary metadata couldn't be extracted
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>>> bare_extraction(downloaded, only_with_metadata=True)
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>>>
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# date found in URL, extraction successful
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>>> bare_extraction(downloaded, only_with_metadata=True, url=url)
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Memory use
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^^^^^^^^^^
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Trafilatura uses caches to speed up extraction and cleaning processes. This may lead to memory leaks in some cases, particularly in large-scale applications. If that happens you can reset all cached information in order to release RAM:
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.. code-block:: python
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# import the function
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>>> from trafilatura.meta import reset_caches
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# use it at any given point
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>>> reset_caches()
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Input/Output types
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------------------
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Python objects as output
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The extraction can be customized using a series of parameters, for more see the `core functions <corefunctions.html>`_ page.
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The function ``bare_extraction`` can be used to bypass output conversion, it returns Python variables for metadata (dictionary) as well as main text and comments (both LXML objects).
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> from trafilatura import bare_extraction
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>>> bare_extraction(downloaded)
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Raw HTTP response objects
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The ``fetch_response()`` function can pass a response object straight to the extraction.
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This can be useful to get the final redirection URL with ``response.url`` and then pass is directly as a URL argument to the extraction function:
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.. code-block:: python
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# necessary components
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>>> from trafilatura import fetch_response, bare_extraction
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# load an example
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>>> response = fetch_response("https://www.example.org")
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# perform extract() or bare_extraction() on Trafilatura's response object
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>>> bare_extraction(response.data, url=response.url) # here is the redirection URL
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LXML objects
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^^^^^^^^^^^^
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The input can consist of a previously parsed tree (i.e. a *lxml.html* object), which is then handled seamlessly:
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.. code-block:: python
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# define document and load it with LXML
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>>> from lxml import html
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>>> my_doc = """<html><body><article><p>
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Here is the main text.
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</p></article></body></html>"""
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>>> mytree = html.fromstring(my_doc)
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# extract from the already loaded LXML tree
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>>> extract(mytree)
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'Here is the main text.'
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Interaction with BeautifulSoup
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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Here is how to convert a BS4 object to LXML format in order to use it with Trafilatura:
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.. code-block:: python
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>>> from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
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>>> from lxml.html.soupparser import convert_tree
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>>> from trafilatura import extract
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>>> soup = BeautifulSoup("<html><body><time>The date is Feb 2, 2024</time></body></html>", "lxml")
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>>> lxml_tree = convert_tree(soup)[0]
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>>> extract(lxml_tree)
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Navigation
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----------
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Three potential navigation strategies are currently available: feeds (mostly for fresh content), sitemaps (for exhaustivity, all potential pages as listed by the owners) and discovery by web crawling (i.e. by following the internal links, more experimental).
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Feeds
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^^^^^
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The function ``find_feed_urls`` is a all-in-one utility that attempts to discover the feeds from a webpage if required and/or downloads and parses feeds. It returns the extracted links as list, more precisely as a sorted list of unique links.
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.. code-block:: python
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# import the feeds module
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>>> from trafilatura import feeds
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# use the homepage to automatically retrieve feeds
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>>> mylist = feeds.find_feed_urls('https://www.theguardian.com/')
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>>> mylist
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['https://www.theguardian.com/international/rss', '...'] # and so on
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# use a predetermined feed URL directly
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>>> mylist = feeds.find_feed_urls('https://rss.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml')
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>>> mylist is not []
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True # it's not empty
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.. note::
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The links are seamlessly filtered for patterns given by the user, e.g. using ``https://www.un.org/en/`` as argument implies taking all URLs corresponding to this category.
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An optional argument ``target_lang`` makes it possible to filter links according to their expected target language. A series of heuristics are applied on the link path and parameters to try to discard unwanted URLs, thus saving processing time and download bandwidth.
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.. code-block:: python
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# the feeds module has to be imported
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# search for feeds in English
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>>> mylist = feeds.find_feed_urls('https://www.un.org/en/rss.xml', target_lang='en')
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>>> mylist is not []
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True # links found as expected
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# target_lang set to Japanese, the English links are discarded
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>>> mylist = feeds.find_feed_urls('https://www.un.org/en/rss.xml', target_lang='ja')
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>>> mylist
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[]
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For more information about feeds and web crawling see:
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- This blog post: `Using RSS and Atom feeds to collect web pages with Python <https://adrien.barbaresi.eu/blog/using-feeds-text-extraction-python.html>`_
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- This Youtube tutorial: `Extracting links from ATOM and RSS feeds <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW2ISdOx08M&list=PL-pKWbySIRGMgxXQOtGIz1-nbfYLvqrci&index=2&t=136s>`_
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Sitemaps
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^^^^^^^^
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- Youtube tutorial: `Learn how to process XML sitemaps to extract all texts present on a website <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWUyhxciTOs>`_
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.. code-block:: python
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# load sitemaps module
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>>> from trafilatura import sitemaps
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# automatically find sitemaps by providing the homepage
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>>> mylinks = sitemaps.sitemap_search('https://www.theguardian.com/')
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# the target_lang argument works as explained above
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>>> mylinks = sitemaps.sitemap_search('https://www.un.org/', target_lang='en')
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The links are also seamlessly filtered for patterns given by the user, e.g. using ``https://www.theguardian.com/society`` as argument implies taking all URLs corresponding to the society category.
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Web crawling
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^^^^^^^^^^^^
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See the `documentation page on web crawling <crawls.html>`_ for more information.
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.. hint::
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For more information on how to refine and filter a URL collection, see the underlying `courlan <https://github.com/adbar/courlan>`_ library.
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Deprecations
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------------
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The following functions and arguments are deprecated:
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- extraction:
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- ``process_record()`` function → use ``extract()`` instead
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- ``csv_output``, ``json_output``, ``tei_output``, ``xml_output`` → use ``output_format`` parameter instead
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- ``bare_extraction(as_dict=True)`` → the function returns a ``Document`` object, use ``.as_dict()`` method on it
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- ``bare_extraction()`` and ``extract()``: ``no_fallback`` → use ``fast`` instead
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- ``max_tree_size`` parameter moved to ``settings.cfg`` file
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- downloads: ``decode`` argument in ``fetch_url()`` → use ``fetch_response`` instead
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- utils: ``decode_response()`` function → use ``decode_file()`` instead
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- metadata: ``with_metadata`` (include metadata) had once the effect of today's ``only_with_metadata`` (only documents with necessary metadata)
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