Get page generated with Javascript in Python

xralf picture xralf · Jan 22, 2012 · Viewed 31.2k times · Source

I'd like to download web page generated by Javascript and store it to string variable in Python code. The page is generated when you click on button.

If I would know the resulting URL I would use urllib2 but this is not the case.

thank you

Answer

jfs picture jfs · Jan 22, 2012

You could use Selenium Webdriver:

#!/usr/bin/env python
from contextlib import closing
from selenium.webdriver import Firefox # pip install selenium
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait

# use firefox to get page with javascript generated content
with closing(Firefox()) as browser:
     browser.get(url)
     button = browser.find_element_by_name('button')
     button.click()
     # wait for the page to load
     WebDriverWait(browser, timeout=10).until(
         lambda x: x.find_element_by_id('someId_that_must_be_on_new_page'))
     # store it to string variable
     page_source = browser.page_source
print(page_source)