Node JS Click Button on Page

Question

I'm trying to make a web-scraper in Node JS and I've hit a roadblock. I need to click on a button BUT, if I'm not mistaken, Node doesn't actually render the web-page like a browser would so I can't use a selector or X-Path.

How then, could I click a specific button with the value "yes" if I can't use the selector or X-path? There's no id unique to only the yes button.

I'm asking this because I want to parse a specific web-page but I get redirected to a page that asks me to press two buttons. Pressing 'Yes' will bring me to the page I want. Pressing 'No' will obviously stop me from going forward.

Is there any way to do what I want within the confines on Node without having to resort to something like JSDOM?

Here's part of the HTML i'm working with:

<div class="buttons">
<button class="c-btn c-btn-primary" type="submit" name="bigbutton" value="no">no thank you</button>
<button class="c-btn c-btn-primary" type="submit" name="bigbutton" value="yes">continue</button>
</div>

I tried using something like this:

document.getElementByID("selector").click()

but was returned with 'ReferenceError: document is not defined'.

Possible duplicate of Why doesn't node.js have a native DOM? — Sterling Archer
– Sterling Archer, Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 1:53
You can't really "click" anything when dealing with scraped content on a webserver, maybe you wanted a headless browser or a bot instead — adeneo
– adeneo, Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 1:54
Is it possible to simply find out the URL of the redirected page beforehand and have Node scrap it directly? — Soubhik Mondal
– Soubhik Mondal, Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 2:43
If I make a request to go to url X it instantly redirects me to page Y, which is what we have here, two buttons. Clicking continue brings me to the page X i wanted to go to. I have a script written for the data parsing when I actually land on page X but can't seem to get past Y without clicking continue. — A B
– A B, Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 2:48
So I figured out I can't even get past the page itself if I disable cookies- Is there a way to add a cookie that works to my node script so that it clears through? — A B
– A B, Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 5:08

jupi · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-24 17:47:07Z

1

Have you tried to use Zombie? I've used and worked well! This link is very helpful, since clarify quickly how to perform actions.

answered May 24, 2017 at 17:47

jupi

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