Scraping web page using BeautifulSoup Python

Question

I'm trying to scrape data from a table using BeautifulSoup. The following problem is occurring: [u'A Southern RV, Inc.1642 E New York AveDeland, FLPhone: (386) 734-5678Website: www.southernrvrentals.comEmail: [email protected]\xa0\n'] from a table that has rows that look like

<table id="ctl00_TemplateBody_WebPartManager1_gwpste_container_SearchForm_ciSearchForm_RTable" border="0">
                            <tbody><tr style="background-color:#990000;">
                                <th align="left" colspan="3" style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;"><span id="ctl00_TemplateBody_WebPartManager1_gwpste_container_SearchForm_ciSearchForm_RSCount" style="color:White;">Your search results returned (85) records </span></th>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/AfterMarket2.gif" alt="After Market Member Logo" border="0"> </td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><span style="font-weight:bold;">A Southern RV, Inc.</span><br>1642 E New York Ave<br>Deland, FL<br>Phone: (386) 734-5678<br>Website: <a href="http://www.southernrvrentals.com/" target="_blank">www.southernrvrentals.com</a><br>Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a></td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td colspan="3"><hr></td>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/AfterMarket2.gif" alt="After Market Member Logo" border="0"> </td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Alec's Truck Trailer &amp; RV</span><br>16960 S Dixie Hwy<br>Miami, FL<br>Phone: (305) 234-5444<br>Website: <a href="http://www.alecstruck.com/" target="_blank">www.alecstruck.com</a><br>Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a></td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td colspan="3"><hr></td>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/RVRAMember2.gif" alt="RVRA Member Logo" border="0"><br>  <img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/GoRVDealer2.gif" alt="Go RV Dealer Logo" border="0"><br> </td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><span style="font-weight:bold;">All Star Coaches</span><br>131 NW 73rd Terraces, Bay 1117<br>Fort Lauderdale, FL<br>Phone: (866) 838-4465<br>Website: <a href="http://www.allstarcoaches.com/" target="_blank">www.allstarcoaches.com</a><br>Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a></td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td colspan="3"><hr></td>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/RVDAMember2.gif" alt="RVDA Member Logo" border="0"><br>  <img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/GoRVDealer2.gif" alt="Go RV Dealer Logo" border="0"><br> </td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Alliance Coach</span><br>4505 Monaco Way<br>Wildwood, FL<br>Phone: (866) 888-8941<br>Website: <a href="http://www.alliancecoachonline.com/" target="_blank">www.alliancecoachonline.com</a><br>Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a></td><td class="ml15" align="left" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="75" align="left"><img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/Cert_web.jpg" height="75" width="75" alt="Certified RV Technician" border="0"></td> <td valign="top" style="font-size:8px;font-weight:bold;" align="left" nowrap=""><img src="./RVDealers-Florida_files/RVLCenter_web.jpg" height="33" width="93" alt="RV Learning Center Certifications" border="0"><br>&nbsp;Certifications:<ul><li style="font-size:7px;">&nbsp;Service Writer/Advisor</li><li style="font-size:7px;">&nbsp;Parts Specialist</li><li style="font-size:7px;">&nbsp;Parts Manager</li><li style="font-size:7px;">&nbsp;Warranty Administrator</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table></td>
                            </tr><tr>
                                <td colspan="3"><hr></td>

The problem is that when I scrape the data, it all condenses into one long string without any spaces or carriage returns. How can I fix this? I'm using this code to extract text from the table:

mech = Browser()
page = mech.open(BASE_URL_DIRECTORY)
html = page.read()
soup = BeautifulSoup(html)
data = extract(soup)

def extract(soup):
    table = soup.find("table",attrs={'id':'ctl00_TemplateBody_WebPartManager1_gwpste_container_SearchForm_ciSearchForm_RTable'})
    #print table
        data = []
    for row in table.findAll("tr"):
        s = row.getText()
        data.append(s)
    return data

alecxe · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-25 14:44:19Z

1

You can use replace_with() to replace every br tag with a new-line:

def extract(soup):
    table = soup.find("table", attrs={'id':'ctl00_TemplateBody_WebPartManager1_gwpste_container_SearchForm_ciSearchForm_RTable'})
    for br in table.find_all('br'):
        br.replace_with('\n')
    return table.get_text().strip()

For the HTML input you've provided it prints:

A Southern RV, Inc.

1642 E New York Ave
Deland, FL
Phone: (386) 734-5678
Website: www.southernrvrentals.com
Email: [email protected]

answered Jun 25, 2014 at 14:44

alecxe

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2 Comments

Apollo Over a year ago

I tried your solution but it only produced the names (in this example A Southern RV, Inc). I've included a more comprehensive sample of the HTML I'm dealing with; I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a look.

alecxe Over a year ago

@Apollo tried on the example you've provided - it does show the results nicely with new-lines. Could you clarify what the problem is now? Thanks.

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