Audience
Anyone searching for a library to extract data from HTML and XML using XPath and CSS selectors
About parsel
Parsel is a BSD-licensed Python library to extract and remove data from HTML and XML using XPath and CSS selectors, optionally combined with regular expressions. Create a selector object for the HTML or XML text that you want to parse. Then use CSS or XPath expressions to select elements. CSS is a language for applying styles to HTML documents. It defines selectors to associate those styles with specific HTML elements. XPath is a language for selecting nodes in XML documents, which can also be used with HTML. You can use either CSS or XPath. CSS is usually more readable, but some things can only be done with XPath. Being built atop lxml, parsel selectors support some EXSLT extensions and come with pre-registered namespaces to use in XPath expressions. Parsel selectors allow you to chain selectors, so most of the time you can just select by class using CSS and then switch to XPath when needed.
Other Popular Alternatives & Related Software
jsoup
jsoup is a Java library that simplifies working with real-world HTML and XML. It offers an easy-to-use API for URL fetching, data parsing, extraction, and manipulation using DOM API methods, CSS, and XPath selectors. jsoup implements the WHATWG HTML5 specification and parses HTML to the same DOM as modern browsers. With jsoup, you can scrape and parse HTML from a URL, file, or string; find and extract data using DOM traversal or CSS selectors; manipulate HTML elements, attributes, and text; clean user-submitted content against a safelist to prevent XSS attacks; and output tidy HTML. jsoup is designed to deal with all varieties of HTML found in the wild, from pristine and validating to invalid tag-soup, creating a sensible parse tree. For example, you can fetch the Wikipedia homepage, parse it to a DOM, and select the headlines from the "In the news" section into a list of elements.
Learn more about jsoup
AgentQL
Forget fragile XPath or DOM selectors. AI-powered AgentQL finds elements reliably, even as websites change. Use natural language to find exact elements. Locates web elements by their meaning. Use natural language description instead of fragile XPath and DOM selectors. Get the results in exactly the shape you need. Built to be deterministic in the best way possible. Get started by installing our Chrome extension, your gateway to a seamless web scraping experience. Extract data from websites with ease. Secure your access with a unique API key, your gateway to utilizing the powerful features of AgentQL, ensuring a secure experience across your apps. Dive into the capabilities of AgentQL by writing your first query, a simple way to specify what data or web elements you want to extract from a website. Explore the power of AgentQL SDK to start automating. Quickly gather essential data, boosting analytics and insights.
Learn more about AgentQL
Nightwatch.js
Nightwatch.js is an integrated, easy to use End-to-End testing solution for web applications and websites, written in Node.js. It uses the W3C WebDriver API to drive browsers and perform commands and assertions on DOM elements. Simple but powerful syntax which enables you to write tests very quickly, using Javascript (Node.js) and CSS or Xpath selectors. Typescript is supported as well. Built-in command-line test runner which runs the tests either sequentially or in parallel, with retries and implicit waits. Also supports grouping of test suites and tags. Manages automatically Selenium or WebDriver services (ChromeDriver, GeckoDriver, Edge, Safari) in a separate child process. Fluent and easy to work with Page Object Model support to better organise elements and sections, with support for both CSS or Xpath selectors.
Learn more about Nightwatch.js
Scrapy
Scrapy is a fast high-level web crawling and web scraping framework, used to crawl websites and extract structured data from their pages. It can be used for a wide range of purposes, from data mining to monitoring and automated testing. Built-in support for selecting and extracting data from HTML/XML sources using extended CSS selectors and XPath expressions, with helper methods to extract using regular expressions. Built-in support for generating feed exports in multiple formats (JSON, CSV, XML) and storing them in multiple backends (FTP, S3, local filesystem). Robust encoding support and auto-detection, for dealing with foreign, non-standard and broken encoding declarations.
Learn more about Scrapy
Pricing
Starting Price:
Free
Free Version:
Free Version available.
Company Information
Python Software Foundation
United States
pypi.org/project/parsel/
Videos and Screen Captures
Other Useful Business Software
Build Agents and Models on One Platform
Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform is Google Cloud's comprehensive platform for developers to build, scale, govern, and optimize agents and models. Choose from Google's most advanced models and third-party models like Anthropic's Claude Model Family.
Product Details
Platforms Supported
Windows
Mac
Linux
Training
Documentation
Webinars
Videos
Support
Online
parsel Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What kinds of users and organization types does parsel work with?
parsel works with these users and organization types: Mid Size Business, Small Business, Enterprise, Freelance, Nonprofit, Government, and Startup.
Q: What languages does parsel support in their product?
parsel supports these languages: English.
Q: What kind of support options does parsel offer?
parsel offers support via online.
Q: What other applications or services does parsel integrate with?
parsel integrates with: Python and Travis CI.
Q: Does parsel have an API?
Yes, parsel has an API.
Q: What type of training does parsel provide?
parsel provides training in the form of documentation, webinars, and videos.
Q: How much does parsel cost?
Pricing for parsel starts at Free.
