This article explains how to scrape Craigslist apartment listings using Perl and the modules LWP::UserAgent and HTML::TreeBuilder. We'll go through each part of the code.
First install the modules if needed:
cpan LWP::UserAgent
cpan HTML::TreeBuilder
Use the modules:
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTML::TreeBuilder;
LWP::UserAgent handles HTTP requests. HTML::TreeBuilder parses HTML.
Set the URL to scrape:
my $url = '<https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa>';
Make the HTTP request and get the response:
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $response = $ua->get($url);
Parse the HTML into a tree:
my $tree = HTML::TreeBuilder->new;
$tree->parse($response->content);
If you check the source code of Craigslist listings you can see that the listings area code looks something like this…
You can see the code block that generates the listing…
<li class="cl-static-search-result" title="Situated in Sunnyvale!, Recycling Center, 1/BD">
<a href="https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/apa/d/santa-clara-situated-in-sunnyvale/7666802370.html">
<div class="title">Situated in Sunnyvale!, Recycling Center, 1/BD</div>
<div class="details">
<div class="price">$2,150</div>
<div class="location">
sunnyvale
</div>
</div>
</a>
</li>its encapsulated in the cl-static-search-result class. We also need to get the title class div and the price and location class divs to get all the data
Get all listing nodes:
my @listings = $tree->look_down('_tag', 'li', sub {
# must have cl-static-search-result class
my $class = $_->attr('class');
return ($class && $class =~ /cl-static-search-result/);
});
Loop through listings and extract info:
for my $listing (@listings) {
my $title = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'div', sub {
return $_->attr('class') eq 'title';
})->as_text;
my $price = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'div', sub {
return $_->attr('class') eq 'price';
})->as_text;
my $location = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'div', sub {
return $_->attr('class') eq 'location';
})->as_text;
my $link = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'a')->attr('href');
print "$title $price $location $link\n";
}
The full Perl code:
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTML::TreeBuilder;
my $url = '<https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa>';
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $response = $ua->get($url);
my $tree = HTML::TreeBuilder->new;
$tree->parse($response->content);
my @listings = $tree->look_down('_tag', 'li', sub {
my $class = $_->attr('class');
return ($class && $class =~ /cl-static-search-result/);
});
for my $listing (@listings) {
my $title = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'div', sub {
return $_->attr('class') eq 'title';
})->as_text;
my $price = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'div', sub {
return $_->attr('class') eq 'price';
})->as_text;
my $location = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'div', sub {
return $_->attr('class') eq 'location';
})->as_text;
my $link = $listing->look_down('_tag', 'a')->attr('href');
print "$title $price $location $link\n";
}
This walks through scraping Craigslist listings in Perl.
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