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https://github.com/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup

A Python library for automating interaction with websites.
https://github.com/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup

beautifulsoup mechanicalsoup pypi python python-library requests web

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A Python library for automating interaction with websites.

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README

        

.. image:: /assets/mechanical-soup-logo.png
:alt: MechanicalSoup. A Python library for automating website interaction.

Home page
---------

https://mechanicalsoup.readthedocs.io/

Overview
--------

A Python library for automating interaction with websites.
MechanicalSoup automatically stores and sends cookies, follows
redirects, and can follow links and submit forms. It doesn't do
JavaScript.

MechanicalSoup was created by `M Hickford
`__, who was a fond user of the
`Mechanize `__ library.
Unfortunately, Mechanize was `incompatible with Python 3 until 2019
`__ and its development
stalled for several years. MechanicalSoup provides a similar API, built on Python
giants `Requests `__ (for
HTTP sessions) and `BeautifulSoup
`__ (for document
navigation). Since 2017 it is a project actively maintained by a small
team including `@hemberger `__ and `@moy
`__.

|Gitter Chat|

Installation
------------

|Latest Version| |Supported Versions|

PyPy3 is also supported (and tested against).

Download and install the latest released version from `PyPI `__::

pip install MechanicalSoup

Download and install the development version from `GitHub `__::

pip install git+https://github.com/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup

Installing from source (installs the version in the current working directory)::

python setup.py install

(In all cases, add ``--user`` to the ``install`` command to
install in the current user's home directory.)

Documentation
-------------

The full documentation is available on
https://mechanicalsoup.readthedocs.io/. You may want to jump directly to
the `automatically generated API
documentation `__.

Example
-------

From ``__, code to get the results from
a Qwant search:

.. code:: python

"""Example usage of MechanicalSoup to get the results from the Qwant
search engine.
"""

import re
import mechanicalsoup
import html
import urllib.parse

# Connect to Qwant
browser = mechanicalsoup.StatefulBrowser(user_agent='MechanicalSoup')
browser.open("https://lite.qwant.com/")

# Fill-in the search form
browser.select_form('#search-form')
browser["q"] = "MechanicalSoup"
browser.submit_selected()

# Display the results
for link in browser.page.select('.result a'):
# Qwant shows redirection links, not the actual URL, so extract
# the actual URL from the redirect link:
href = link.attrs['href']
m = re.match(r"^/redirect/[^/]*/(.*)$", href)
if m:
href = urllib.parse.unquote(m.group(1))
print(link.text, '->', href)

More examples are available in ``__.

For an example with a more complex form (checkboxes, radio buttons and
textareas), read ``__
and ``__.

Development
-----------

|Build Status|
|Coverage Status|
|Documentation Status|
|CII Best Practices|

Instructions for building, testing and contributing to MechanicalSoup:
see ``__.

Common problems
---------------

Read the `FAQ
`__.

.. |Latest Version| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/MechanicalSoup.svg
:target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/MechanicalSoup/
.. |Supported Versions| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/mechanicalsoup.svg
:target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/MechanicalSoup/
.. |Build Status| image:: https://github.com/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup/actions/workflows/python-package.yml/badge.svg?branch=main
:target: https://github.com/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup/actions/workflows/python-package.yml?query=branch%3Amain
.. |Coverage Status| image:: https://codecov.io/gh/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup/branch/main/graph/badge.svg
:target: https://codecov.io/gh/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup
.. |Documentation Status| image:: https://readthedocs.org/projects/mechanicalsoup/badge/?version=latest
:target: https://mechanicalsoup.readthedocs.io/en/latest/?badge=latest
.. |CII Best Practices| image:: https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/projects/1334/badge
:target: https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/projects/1334
.. |Gitter Chat| image:: https://badges.gitter.im/MechanicalSoup/MechanicalSoup.svg
:target: https://gitter.im/MechanicalSoup/Lobby