scraping table with R using RSelenium

Question

I want to scrape a table like this (click on search then you will get a table of partners). I'd want to scrape the partner names. The problem is I don't know what kind of a table that is nor how to scrape it.

I am using RSelenium package. If it can be done using rvest then it would be much helpful.

So what kind of a table is this, is it possible to scrape it with RSelenium or rvest and if so, how?

ul="http://partnerlocator.symantec.com"
remDr$navigate(ul)
webElem<-remDr$findElement(using = "class", value = "button")
webElem$clickElement()
Sys.sleep(10)
webElem<-remDr$findElement(using = "class", value = "results")
unlist(webElem$getElementText())

But I get a very complex text output like this -

CDW\nCDW\n200 North Milwaukee Avenue\nVernon Hills ,Illinois ,60061\nUnited States\nDistance: 0 mi\nSymantec Platinum Partner\nCore Security - Platinum\nThreat Protection - Platinum\nCyber Security Services - Platinum\nInformation Protection - Platinum\nDLT Solutions\nDLT Solutions\n2411 Dulles Corner Park Suite 800\nHerndon ,Virginia ,20171\nUnited States\nDistance: 0 mi\nSymantec Platinum Partner\nInformation Protection - Platinum\nThreat Protection - Platinum\nCore Security - Platinum\nCyber Security Services - Platinum\nInsight Direct USA\nInsight Direct USA\n3480 Lotus Drive\nPlano ,Texas ,75075\nUnited States\nDistance: 0 mi\nSymantec Platinum Partner\nCyber Security Services - Platinum\nCore Security - Platinum\nThreat Prot.........

similar question mentioned here: stackoverflow.com/questions/29953394/… — Mohammad
– Mohammad, Commented Jun 27, 2016 at 18:48

Stedy · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-11 04:32:34Z

2

This looks like a pretty basic HTML table collapsed into one line which can be expanded as such:

library(RSelenium)

checkForServer()
ul="http://partnerlocator.symantec.com"
startServer()
remDr <- remoteDriver()
remDr$open()
remDr$navigate(ul)
webElem<-remDr$findElement(using = "class", value = "button")
webElem$clickElement()
Sys.sleep(10)
webElem<-remDr$findElement(using = "class", value = "results")
results <- webElem$getElementText()
results_chr <- unlist(strsplit(results[[1]], "\n"))

head(results_chr)
[1] "CDW"                           "CDW"                           "200 North Milwaukee Avenue"   
[4] "Vernon Hills ,Illinois ,60061" "United States"                 "Distance: 0 mi"

You might be able to return a cleaner result from the HTML table for that results page with rvest but I was unable to do so.

answered Jul 11, 2016 at 4:32

Stedy

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