A Scrapy Download Handler which performs requests using Playwright for Python. It can be used to handle pages that require JavaScript (among other things), while adhering to the regular Scrapy workflow (i.e. without interfering with request scheduling, item processing, etc).
After the release of version 2.0,
which includes coroutine syntax support
and asyncio support, Scrapy allows
to integrate asyncio
-based projects such as Playwright
.
- Python >= 3.7
- Scrapy >= 2.0 (!= 2.4.0)
- Playwright >= 1.15
scrapy-playwright
is available on PyPI and can be installed with pip
:
pip install scrapy-playwright
playwright
is defined as a dependency so it gets installed automatically,
however it might be necessary to install the specific browser(s) that will be
used:
playwright install
It's also possible to install only a subset of the available browsers:
playwright install firefox chromium
See the changelog.md file.
Replace the default http
and/or https
Download Handlers through
DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS
:
DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS = {
"http": "scrapy_playwright.handler.ScrapyPlaywrightDownloadHandler",
"https": "scrapy_playwright.handler.ScrapyPlaywrightDownloadHandler",
}
Note that the ScrapyPlaywrightDownloadHandler
class inherits from the default
http/https
handler. Unless explicitly marked (see Basic usage),
requests will be processed by the regular Scrapy download handler.
Also, be sure to install the asyncio
-based Twisted reactor:
TWISTED_REACTOR = "twisted.internet.asyncioreactor.AsyncioSelectorReactor"
Set the playwright
Request.meta
key to download a request using Playwright:
import scrapy
class AwesomeSpider(scrapy.Spider):
name = "awesome"
def start_requests(self):
# GET request
yield scrapy.Request("https://httpbin.org/get", meta={"playwright": True})
# POST request
yield scrapy.FormRequest(
url="https://httpbin.org/post",
formdata={"foo": "bar"},
meta={"playwright": True},
)
def parse(self, response):
# 'response' contains the page as seen by the browser
return {"url": response.url}
By default, outgoing requests include the User-Agent
set by Scrapy (either with the
USER_AGENT
or DEFAULT_REQUEST_HEADERS
settings or via the Request.headers
attribute).
This could cause some sites to react in unexpected ways, for instance if the user agent
does not match the running Browser. If you prefer the User-Agent
sent by
default by the specific browser you're using, set the Scrapy user agent to None
.
Type str
, default "chromium"
.
The browser type to be launched, e.g. chromium
, firefox
, webkit
.
PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSER_TYPE = "firefox"
Type dict
, default {}
A dictionary with options to be passed as keyword arguments when launching the
Browser. See the docs for
BrowserType.launch
.
PLAYWRIGHT_LAUNCH_OPTIONS = {
"headless": False,
"timeout": 20 * 1000, # 20 seconds
}
Type dict[str, dict]
, default {}
A dictionary which defines Browser contexts to be created on startup. It should be a mapping of (name, keyword arguments).
PLAYWRIGHT_CONTEXTS = {
"foobar": {
"context_arg1": "value",
"context_arg2": "value",
},
"default": {
"context_arg1": "value",
"context_arg2": "value",
},
"persistent": {
"user_data_dir": "/path/to/dir", # will be a persistent context
"context_arg1": "value",
},
}
See the section on browser contexts for more information.
See also the docs for Browser.new_context
.
Type Optional[int]
, default None
Maximum amount of allowed concurrent Playwright contexts. If unset or None
,
no limit is enforced. See the Maximum concurrent context count
section for more information.
PLAYWRIGHT_MAX_CONTEXTS = 8
Type Optional[float]
, default None
Timeout to be used when requesting pages by Playwright. If None
or unset,
the default value will be used (30000 ms at the time of writing this).
See the docs for BrowserContext.set_default_navigation_timeout.
PLAYWRIGHT_DEFAULT_NAVIGATION_TIMEOUT = 10 * 1000 # 10 seconds
Type Optional[Union[Callable, str]]
, default scrapy_playwright.headers.use_scrapy_headers
A function (or the path to a function) that processes headers for a given request
and returns a dictionary with the headers to be used (note that, depending on the browser,
additional default headers could be sent as well). Coroutine functions (async def
) are
supported.
This will be called at least once for each Scrapy request (receiving said request and the corresponding Playwright request), but it could be called additional times if the given resource generates more requests (e.g. to retrieve assets like images or scripts).
The function must return a dict
object, and receives the following positional arguments:
- browser_type: str
- playwright_request: playwright.async_api.Request
- scrapy_headers: scrapy.http.headers.Headers
The default function (scrapy_playwright.headers.use_scrapy_headers
) tries to
emulate Scrapy's behaviour for navigation requests, i.e. overriding headers
with their values from the Scrapy request. For non-navigation requests (e.g.
images, stylesheets, scripts, etc), only the User-Agent
header is overriden,
for consistency.
Setting PLAYWRIGHT_PROCESS_REQUEST_HEADERS=None
will give complete control to
Playwright, i.e. headers from Scrapy requests will be ignored and only headers
set by Playwright will be sent. Keep in mind that in this case, headers passed
via the Request.headers
attribute or set by Scrapy components are ignored
(including cookies set via the Request.cookies
attribute).
def custom_headers(
browser_type: str,
playwright_request: playwright.async_api.Request,
scrapy_headers: scrapy.http.headers.Headers,
) -> dict:
if browser_type == "firefox":
return {"User-Agent": "foo"}
return {"User-Agent": "bar"}
PLAYWRIGHT_PROCESS_REQUEST_HEADERS = custom_headers
Type int
, defaults to the value of Scrapy's CONCURRENT_REQUESTS
setting
Maximum amount of allowed concurrent Playwright pages for each context. See the notes about leaving unclosed pages.
PLAYWRIGHT_MAX_PAGES_PER_CONTEXT = 4
Type Optional[Union[Callable, str]]
, default None
A predicate function (or the path to a function) that receives a
playwright.async_api.Request
object and must return True
if the request should be aborted, False
otherwise.
Coroutine functions (async def
) are supported.
Note that all requests will appear in the DEBUG level logs, however there will
be no corresponding response log lines for aborted requests. Aborted requests
are counted in the playwright/request_count/aborted
job stats item.
def should_abort_request(request):
return (
request.resource_type == "image"
or ".jpg" in request.url
)
PLAYWRIGHT_ABORT_REQUEST = should_abort_request
For settings that accept object paths as strings, passing callable objects is only supported when using Scrapy>=2.4. With prior versions, only strings are supported.
Type bool
, default False
If set to a value that evaluates to True
the request will be processed by Playwright.
return scrapy.Request("https://example.org", meta={"playwright": True})
Type str
, default "default"
Name of the context to be used to download the request. See the section on browser contexts for more information.
return scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={
"playwright": True,
"playwright_context": "persistent",
},
)
Type dict
, default {}
A dictionary with keyword arguments to be used when creating a new context, if a context
with the name specified in the playwright_context
meta key does not exist already.
See the section on browser contexts for more information.
return scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={
"playwright": True,
"playwright_context": "new",
"playwright_context_kwargs": {
"ignore_https_errors": True,
},
},
)
Type bool
, default False
If True
, the Playwright page
that was used to download the request will be available in the callback via
response.meta['playwright_page']
.
Important!
This meta key is entirely optional, it's NOT necessary for the page to load or for any
asynchronous operation to be performed (specifically, it's NOT necessary for PageMethod
objects to be applied). Use it only if you need access to the Page object in the callback
that handles the request.
For more information and important notes see Receiving Page objects in callbacks.
return scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_include_page": True},
)
Type Dict[Str, Callable]
, default {}
A dictionary of handlers to be attached to page events. See Handling page events.
Type Optional[Union[Callable, str]]
, default None
A coroutine function (async def
) to be invoked immediately after creating
a page for the request. It receives the page and the request as positional
arguments. Useful for initialization code. Invoked only for newly created
pages, ignored if the page for the request already exists (e.g. by passing
playwright_page
).
async def init_page(page, request):
await page.add_init_script(path="./custom_script.js")
class AwesomeSpider(scrapy.Spider):
def start_requests(self):
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://httpbin.org/headers",
meta={
"playwright": True,
"playwright_page_init_callback": init_page,
},
)
Important!
scrapy-playwright
uses Page.route
& Page.unroute
internally, please
avoid using these methods unless you know exactly what you're doing.
Type Iterable
, default ()
An iterable of scrapy_playwright.page.PageMethod
objects to indicate
actions to be performed on the page before returning the final response.
See Executing actions on pages.
Type Optional[playwright.async_api._generated.Page]
, default None
A Playwright page to be used to
download the request. If unspecified, a new page is created for each request.
This key could be used in conjunction with playwright_include_page
to make a chain of
requests using the same page. For instance:
def start_requests(self):
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://httpbin.org/get",
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_include_page": True},
)
def parse(self, response):
page = response.meta["playwright_page"]
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://httpbin.org/headers",
callback=self.parse_headers,
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_page": page},
)
Type dict
, default {}
A dictionary with keyword arguments to be passed to the page's
goto
method
when navigating to an URL. The url
key is ignored if present, the request
URL is used instead.
return scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={
"playwright": True,
"playwright_page_goto_kwargs": {
"wait_until": "networkidle",
},
},
)
Type Optional[dict]
, read only
A dictionary with security information
about the give response. Only available for HTTPS requests. Could be accessed
in the callback via response.meta['playwright_security_details']
def parse(self, response):
print(response.meta["playwright_security_details"])
# {'issuer': 'DigiCert TLS RSA SHA256 2020 CA1', 'protocol': 'TLS 1.3', 'subjectName': 'www.example.org', 'validFrom': 1647216000, 'validTo': 1678838399}
Specifying a non-False value for the playwright_include_page
meta key for a
request will result in the corresponding playwright.async_api.Page
object
being available in the playwright_page
meta key in the request callback.
In order to be able to await
coroutines on the provided Page
object,
the callback needs to be defined as a coroutine function (async def
).
Caution
Use this carefully, and only if you really need to do things with the Page
object in the callback. If pages are not properly closed after they are no longer
necessary the spider job could get stuck because of the limit set by the
PLAYWRIGHT_MAX_PAGES_PER_CONTEXT
setting.
import scrapy
class AwesomeSpiderWithPage(scrapy.Spider):
name = "page_spider"
def start_requests(self):
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
callback=self.parse_first,
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_include_page": True},
errback=self.errback_close_page,
)
def parse_first(self, response):
page = response.meta["playwright_page"]
return scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.com",
callback=self.parse_second,
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_include_page": True, "playwright_page": page},
errback=self.errback_close_page,
)
async def parse_second(self, response):
page = response.meta["playwright_page"]
title = await page.title() # "Example Domain"
await page.close()
return {"title": title}
async def errback_close_page(self, failure):
page = failure.request.meta["playwright_page"]
await page.close()
Notes:
- When passing
playwright_include_page=True
, make sure pages are always closed when they are no longer used. It's recommended to set a Request errback to make sure pages are closed even if a request fails (ifplaywright_include_page=False
or unset, pages are automatically closed upon encountering an exception). This is important, as open pages count towards the limit set byPLAYWRIGHT_MAX_PAGES_PER_CONTEXT
and crawls could freeze if the limit is reached and pages remain open indefinitely. - Defining callbacks as
async def
is only necessary if you need toawait
things, it's NOT necessary if you just need to pass over the Page object from one callback to another (see the example above). - Any network operations resulting from awaiting a coroutine on a Page object
(
goto
,go_back
, etc) will be executed directly by Playwright, bypassing the Scrapy request workflow (Scheduler, Middlewares, etc).
Multiple browser contexts
to be launched at startup can be defined via the
PLAYWRIGHT_CONTEXTS
setting.
Pass the name of the desired context in the playwright_context
meta key:
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_context": "first"},
)
If a request does not explicitly indicate a context via the playwright_context
meta key, it falls back to using a general context called default
. This default
context can also be customized on startup via the PLAYWRIGHT_CONTEXTS
setting.
Pass a value for the user_data_dir
keyword argument to launch a context as
persistent. See also BrowserType.launch_persistent_context
.
If the context specified in the playwright_context
meta key does not exist, it will be created.
You can specify keyword arguments to be passed to
Browser.new_context
in the playwright_context_kwargs
meta key:
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={
"playwright": True,
"playwright_context": "new",
"playwright_context_kwargs": {
"java_script_enabled": False,
"ignore_https_errors": True,
"proxy": {
"server": "https://myproxy.com:3128",
"username": "user",
"password": "pass",
},
},
},
)
Please note that if a context with the specified name already exists,
that context is used and playwright_context_kwargs
are ignored.
After receiving the Page object in your callback,
you can access a context though the corresponding Page.context
attribute, and await close
on it.
def parse(self, response):
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
callback=self.parse_in_new_context,
errback=self.close_context_on_error,
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_context": "new", "playwright_include_page": True},
)
async def parse_in_new_context(self, response):
page = response.meta["playwright_page"]
title = await page.title()
await page.context.close()
return {"title": title}
async def close_context_on_error(self, failure):
self.logger.warning("There was an error when processing %s: %s", failure.request, failure.value)
page = failure.request.meta["playwright_page"]
await page.context.close()
Specify a value for the PLAYWRIGHT_MAX_CONTEXTS
setting to limit the amount
of concurent contexts. This setting should be used with caution: it's possible
to block the whole crawl if contexts are not closed after they are no longer
used (refer to the above section to dinamically close contexts). Make sure to
define an errback to still be able to close the context even if there are
errors with a request.
Proxies are supported at the Browser level by specifying the proxy
key in
the PLAYWRIGHT_LAUNCH_OPTIONS
setting:
from scrapy import Spider, Request
class ProxySpider(Spider):
name = "proxy"
custom_settings = {
"PLAYWRIGHT_LAUNCH_OPTIONS": {
"proxy": {
"server": "https://myproxy.com:3128"
"username": "user",
"password": "pass",
},
}
}
def start_requests(self):
yield Request("https://httpbin.org/get", meta={"playwright": True})
def parse(self, response):
print(response.text)
You can also set proxies per context with the PLAYWRIGHT_CONTEXTS
setting:
PLAYWRIGHT_CONTEXTS = {
"default": {
"proxy": {
"server": "https://default-proxy.com:3128",
"username": "user1",
"password": "pass1",
},
},
"alternative": {
"proxy": {
"server": "https://alternative-proxy.com:3128",
"username": "user2",
"password": "pass2",
},
},
}
Or passing a proxy
key when creating a context during a crawl.
See also:
zyte-smartproxy-playwright
: seamless support for Zyte Smart Proxy Manager in the Node.js version of Playwright.- the upstream Playwright for Python section on HTTP Proxies.
A sorted iterable (e.g. list
, tuple
, dict
) of PageMethod
objects
could be passed in the playwright_page_methods
Request.meta
key to request methods to be invoked on the Page
object before returning the final
Response
to the callback.
This is useful when you need to perform certain actions on a page (like scrolling down or clicking links) and you want to handle only the final result in your callback.
Represents a method to be called (and awaited if necessary) on a
playwright.page.Page
object (e.g. "click", "screenshot", "evaluate", etc).
method
is the name of the method, *args
and **kwargs
are passed when calling such method. The return value
will be stored in the PageMethod.result
attribute.
For instance:
def start_requests(self):
yield Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={
"playwright": True,
"playwright_page_methods": [
PageMethod("screenshot", path="example.png", full_page=True),
],
},
)
def parse(self, response):
screenshot = response.meta["playwright_page_methods"][0]
# screenshot.result contains the image's bytes
produces the same effect as:
def start_requests(self):
yield Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={"playwright": True, "playwright_include_page": True},
)
async def parse(self, response):
page = response.meta["playwright_page"]
screenshot = await page.screenshot(path="example.png", full_page=True)
# screenshot contains the image's bytes
await page.close()
Please refer to the upstream docs for the Page
class
to see available methods.
Certain Response
attributes (e.g. url
, ip_address
) reflect the state after the last
action performed on a page. If you issue a PageMethod
with an action that results in
a navigation (e.g. a click
on a link), the Response.url
attribute will point to the
new URL, which might be different from the request's URL.
A dictionary of Page event handlers can be specified in the playwright_page_event_handlers
Request.meta key.
Keys are the name of the event to be handled (e.g. dialog
, download
, etc).
Values can be either callables or strings (in which case a spider method with the name will be looked up).
Example:
from playwright.async_api import Dialog
async def handle_dialog(dialog: Dialog) -> None:
logging.info(f"Handled dialog with message: {dialog.message}")
await dialog.dismiss()
class EventSpider(scrapy.Spider):
name = "event"
def start_requests(self):
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta={
"playwright": True,
"playwright_page_event_handlers": {
"dialog": handle_dialog,
"response": "handle_response",
},
},
)
async def handle_response(self, response: PlaywrightResponse) -> None:
logging.info(f"Received response with URL {response.url}")
See the upstream Page
docs for a list of
the accepted events and the arguments passed to their handlers.
Note: keep in mind that, unless they are removed later, these handlers will remain attached to the page and will be called for subsequent downloads using the same page. This is usually not a problem, since by default requests are performed in single-use pages.
Click on a link, save the resulting page as PDF
class ClickAndSavePdfSpider(scrapy.Spider):
name = "pdf"
def start_requests(self):
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://example.org",
meta=dict(
playwright=True,
playwright_page_methods={
"click": PageMethod("click", selector="a"),
"pdf": PageMethod("pdf", path="/tmp/file.pdf"),
},
),
)
def parse(self, response):
pdf_bytes = response.meta["playwright_page_methods"]["pdf"].result
with open("iana.pdf", "wb") as fp:
fp.write(pdf_bytes)
yield {"url": response.url} # response.url is "https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved"
Scroll down on an infinite scroll page, take a screenshot of the full page
class ScrollSpider(scrapy.Spider):
name = "scroll"
def start_requests(self):
yield scrapy.Request(
url="https://quotes.toscrape.com/scroll",
meta=dict(
playwright=True,
playwright_include_page=True,
playwright_page_methods=[
PageMethod("wait_for_selector", "div.quote"),
PageMethod("evaluate", "window.scrollBy(0, document.body.scrollHeight)"),
PageMethod("wait_for_selector", "div.quote:nth-child(11)"), # 10 per page
],
),
)
async def parse(self, response):
page = response.meta["playwright_page"]
await page.screenshot(path="quotes.png", full_page=True)
await page.close()
return {"quote_count": len(response.css("div.quote"))} # quotes from several pages
For more examples, please see the scripts in the examples directory.
This package does not work natively on Windows. This is because:
- Playwright runs the driver in a subprocess. Source: Playwright repository.
- "On Windows, the default event loop
ProactorEventLoop
supports subprocesses, whereasSelectorEventLoop
does not". Source: Python docs. - Twisted's
asyncio
reactor requires theSelectorEventLoop
. Source: Twisted repository.
Some users have reported having success running under WSL. See also #78 for information about working in headful mode under WSL.
Specifying a proxy via the proxy
Request meta key is not supported.
Refer to the Proxy support section for more information.
The headers_received
and bytes_received
signals are not fired by the
scrapy-playwright download handler.
Deprecated features will be supported for at least six months following the release that deprecated them. After that, they may be removed at any time. See the changelog for more information about deprecations and removals.