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Scripting in Python

Overview

The Jython interpreter is used by screen-scraper to for scripting in Python. Jython is a very fast interpreter, and we'd recommend using it if you're familiar with the Python programming language.

Importing External Java Classes

Importing your externally-compiled classes is as easy as placing them in the ./lib/ext folder of your installation. The Jython interpreter will automatically include that folder on your PythonPath.

Generator Objects

The generator objects are implemented in Jython and the folders lib/ext, lib/jython-lib, and lib/jython-lib/site-packages are included in python's system path.

Example

When scripting in Python all of the standard Java classes can be used. Classes must be imported using the Java package hierarchy of screen-scraper, which is also required if you'd like to create one of screen-scraper's RunnableScrapingSession objects. Here's an example that will run a scraping session called "Weather":

# This particular example will only work with professional and enterprise editions of screen-scraper
# RunnableScrapingSession is reserved for these editions

# Import the RunnableScrapingSession class.
from com.screenscraper.scraper import RunnableScrapingSession

# Generate a new "Weather" scraping session.
runnableScrapingSession = RunnableScrapingSession( "Weather" )

# Put the zip code in a session variable so we can reference it later.
runnableScrapingSession.setVariable( "ZIP_CODE", "90001" )

# Tell the scraping session to scrape.
runnableScrapingSession.scrape()

Notice that before the RunnableScrapingSession class can be used it first must be imported.

scraper on 07/16/2010 at 4:27 pm