The lxml package stands as a powerful and widely adopted Python library, providing an efficient way to use XPath selectors for parsing XML and HTML. Utilizing the xpath() method within lxml enables developers to pinpoint and extract all matching values based on their unique queries, thus simplifying the process of data extraction from complex web pages. This capability is indispensable for those engaged in web scraping, data mining, and automated testing. To further streamline your data extraction projects, integrating the best web scraping API can significantly enhance your workflow. Such APIs are designed to simplify the process of retrieving web data, offering a robust solution for navigating and extracting data from the vast expanse of the internet efficiently.
from lxml import etree
tree = etree.fromstring("""
<div>
<a>link 1</a>
<a>link 2</a>
</div>
""")
for result in tree.xpath("//a"):
print(result.text)
"link 1"
"link 2"
However, for web scraping, it is suggested to use the parsel package. This package is built on lxml and offers more consistent behavior when dealing with HTML content:
from parsel import Selector
selector = Selector("""
<div>
<a>link 1</a>
<a>link 2</a>
</div>
""")
selector.xpath("//a").getall()
['<a>link 1</a>', '<a>link 2</a>']
