Extracting plain text from HTML using Python

Question

I'm trying to extract plain text from a website using python. My code is something like this (a slightly modified version of what I found here):

import requests
import urllib
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
url = "http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/aen1.shtml"
r = requests.get(url)
k = r.content
file = open('C:\\Users\\Anirudh\\Desktop\\NEW2.txt','w')
soup = BeautifulSoup(k)
for script in soup(["Script","Style"]):
    script.exctract()
text = soup.get_text
file.write(repr(text))

This doesn't seem to work. I'm guessing that beautifulsoup doesn't accept r.content. What can I do to fix this?

This is the error -

UserWarning: No parser was explicitly specified, so I'm using the best available HTML parser for this system ("html.parser"). This usually isn't a problem, but if you run this code on another system, or in a different virtual environment, it may use a different parser and behave differently.

The code that caused this warning is on line 8 of the file C:/Users/Anirudh/PycharmProjects/untitled/test/__init__.py. To get rid of this warning, change code that looks like this:

 BeautifulSoup([your markup])

to this:

 BeautifulSoup([your markup], "html.parser")

  markup_type=markup_type))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/Anirudh/PycharmProjects/untitled/test/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
    file.write(repr(text))
  File "C:\Python34\lib\encodings\cp1252.py", line 19, in encode
    return codecs.charmap_encode(input,self.errors,encoding_table)[0]
UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\x97' in position 2130: character maps to <undefined>

Process finished with exit code 1

try soup = BeautifulSoup(K, 'html.parser') and tell me if the error changes. — Harrison
– Harrison, Commented Aug 14, 2016 at 13:14
@Harrison , it is now - Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:/Users/Anirudh/PycharmProjects/untitled/test/__init__.py", line 12, in <module> file.write(repr(text)) File "C:\Python34\lib\encodings\cp1252.py", line 19, in encode return codecs.charmap_encode(input,self.errors,encoding_table)[0] UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\x97' in position 2130: character maps to <undefined> oh , by the way , what was that warning and what happened to it when you included html.parser ? — Vrisk
– Vrisk, Commented Aug 14, 2016 at 13:18
@AnirudhGanesh If you look at the error message it's telling you that it can't encode this character codetable.net/hex/97 — Harrison
– Harrison, Commented Aug 14, 2016 at 13:21

James K · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-14 13:56:58Z

2

The "error" is a warning, and is of no consequence. Quieten it with soup = BeautifulSoup(k, 'html.parser')

There seems to be a typo script.exctract() The word extract is spelt incorrectly.

The actual error seems to be that the content is a bytestring, but you are writing in text mode. The source contains an em dash. Handling this character is the problem.

You can encode with soup.encode("utf-8"). This means hardcoding the encoding into your script (which is bad). Or try using binary mode for the file open(..., 'wb'), or converting the content to a string before passing it to Beautiful Soup, using the correct encoding for that file, with k = str(r.content,"utf-8").

edited Aug 14, 2016 at 13:56

answered Aug 14, 2016 at 13:21

James K

3,7621 gold badge31 silver badges37 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

9 Comments

Vrisk Over a year ago

Still same error with typo corrected and use of repr(k)

James K Over a year ago

maybe convert to a string before passing to beautiful soup.

Vrisk Over a year ago

I'm sorry , I think I misunderstood but str(k) doesn't help either . I did what you said in the answer , still the same result

James K Over a year ago

can you print instead of file.write ?

Vrisk Over a year ago

I seem to have fixed it , the code ought to have been soup.get_text()

|

Vrisk · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-16 19:06:17Z

0

There was a — on the code which resulted in an error , '—' being non utf-8 . Changing the encoding before passing text on to BeautifulSoup fixed the issue .

Another error was due to soup.get_text . Missing out () implied I was referencing the method , not the output .

answered Aug 16, 2016 at 19:06

Vrisk

2211 silver badge12 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Extracting plain text from HTML using Python

2 Answers 2

9 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

9 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related