Using async-await makes working with Puppeteer much easier. Using async-await, we can write code that almost reads like synchronous code. It makes working with asynchronous code a lot easier. async-await is an asynchronous programming structure that got introduced into JavaScript after Promises. JavaScript has a couple of patterns that are used for dealing with the asynchronous program flow, such as callback functions and Promises. This post assumes that you are comfortable using the JavaScript async-await pattern that is used for writing asynchronous programs. When we control a browser without any graphical User Interface (UI), it is said to be running in a headless mode. Puppeteer allows us to control a Chrome (or a Chromium) browser programmatically. It is a well-maintained library that is developed by the teams at Google. The package that we will be using for this purpose is called Puppeteer.
There are many libraries in the JavaScript ecosystem that would allow us to control a browser programmatically. Automating our interactions with the web by programming a browser enables us to build tools that can scrape data from websites, fill out forms for us, take screenshots or download files with a single command.
We can control a browser programmatically by using JavaScript. For those cases, we can automate a browser to access a website programmatically. Unfortunately, not every online resource has an API that you can interact with. Manually extracting data can be time-consuming, given the amount of data that is out there. Web scraping is the act of extracting data from a website either by manual or automated means. For example, we can use an API of a money exchange to programmatically fetch the latest prices for a stock without visiting the website. This way, we can consume data on the web without using a web browser. A Web API defines the way we can programmatically access and interact with a remote resource.
API is short for Application Programming Interface. You can visit a website using a web browser to do things like checking out social media, getting the latest news, or check stock/cryptocurrency prices.Īnother way of accessing data is to use an API. Most people manually access that data by using a web browser. Internet is a source for all kinds of useful (and useless) data. Web Scraping Using JavaScript and Node.js
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