Parsing WhitePages Search Results HTML

Searching WhitePages

The following Python script uses HTTPLib to search against whitepages.com.au (via a proxy).

 #!/usr/bin/env python
 #
 #
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 import re
 import sys
 import base64
 import pprint
 import urllib
 import httplib
 
 from copy import copy
 
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 PROXY       = 'PROXY:8080'
 SITE        = 'www.whitepages.com.au'
 
 connection  = None
 
 #===== Headers =================================================================
 
 #    'Accept' : 'text/plain, text/html',
 
 get_headers = {
    'Accept-Encoding'    : 'gzip, deflate',
    'Accept'             : '*/*',
    'Accept-Language'    : 'en-au',
    'Host'               : SITE,
    'Connection'         : 'Keep-Alive',
    'User-Agent'         : 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727'
 }
 
 post_headers = {
    'Content-type'       : 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
    'Accept'             : 'text/plain'
 }
 
 idx      = 0
 
 #===== Logging =================================================================
 
 def log_req_header(idx, hdr):
    of = open('log/%04d.req' % idx, 'w')
    of.write("%s\n" % pprint.pformat(hdr))
    of.close()
 
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 def log_resp_header(idx, resp):
    of = open('log/%04d.hdr' % idx, 'w')
 
    of.write("resp.__dict__ ->\n%s\n\n" % pprint.pformat(resp.__dict__))
    of.write("Status %s  Reason [%s]\n" % (resp.status, resp.reason))
    of.write("Msg ->\n%s\n\n" % resp.msg)
    of.write("Msg.__dict__ ->\n%s\n\n" % pprint.pformat(resp.msg.__dict__))
 
    of.close()
 
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 def log_resp_body(idx, resp_body):
    of = open('log/%04d.bdy' % idx, 'w')
    of.write(resp_body);
    of.close()
 
 #===== Encapsulate the request code ============================================
 
 def request(method, url, params, headers):
    global idx
 
    print '>>>> %s %s <<<<' % (method, url)
 
    connection.request(method, url, params, headers)
 
    resp = connection.getresponse()
 
    log_req_header(idx, headers)
    log_resp_header(idx, resp)
 
    resp_body = resp.read()
 
    log_resp_body(idx, resp_body)
 
    print resp_body
 
    idx += 1
 
    return resp
 
 #===============================================================================
 
 def do():
    global connection
    connection  = httplib.HTTPConnection(PROXY)
 
    BASE_URL    = 'http://%s' % SITE
 
    #------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
    DO       = 'GET'
    URL      = BASE_URL + '/'
 
    headers = copy(get_headers)
 
    request(DO, URL, None, headers)
 
 
    #------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
    DO  = 'GET'
    URL = BASE_URL + '/wp/index.jsp'
 
    headers = copy(get_headers)
 
    resp = request(DO, URL, None, headers)
 
    m = re.search('JSESSIONID=(.*);', resp.msg.__dict__['dict']['set-cookie'])
 
    if m:
       print m.group(1)
       JSESSIONID = m.group(1)
 
    print JSESSIONID
 
    #---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
    DO  = 'POST'
    URL = BASE_URL + '/wp/busSearch.do;jsessionid=%s' % JSESSIONID
 
    headers = copy(post_headers)
 
    form_data = {
       'subscriberName' : 'Hard',
       'state'          : 'VIC',
       'suburb'         : '',
       'street'         : '',
       'Search'         : 'Search'
    }
 
    params = urllib.urlencode(form_data)
 
    headers['Content-Length'] = len(params)
    headers['Cookie']         = 'JSESSIONID=%s' % JSESSIONID
 
    request(DO, URL, params, headers)
 
    #---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
    URL = BASE_URL + '/wp/busSearch.do'
 
    form_data = {
       'subscriberName' : 'Hard',
       'state'          : 'VIC',
       'page'           : '2'
    }
 
    params = urllib.urlencode(form_data)
 
    headers['Content-Length'] = len(params)
    headers['Cookie']         = 'JSESSIONID=%s' % JSESSIONID
 
    request(DO, URL, params, headers)
  
 #===============================================================================
 
 do()
 
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This script writes the search results into files (page 1 => 'log/0002.bdy' and page 2 => 'log/0003.bdy'). Amend the above code handle more pages of search results being produced.

Parsing the Search Results

The search results HTML looks as follows:

<div class="encap_result" id="result-10"><ul><li id='res10-ln0'><h4><span class='blackboldcaps'>Hard ...</ul></li></ul><div class="clearMe"> </div></div><div class="encap_result" id="result-11"><ul><li>

Results of Search

Are wriiten to a file in a block of XML.

A more Complex Script

This script loops through all the available pages in the search results and parses out the search results using the BeautifulSoup HTTP parsing module.

wp_get.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
#
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

import re
import sys
import base64
import pprint
import urllib
import httplib

from copy import copy


#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from wp_parser import parse


#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PROXY          = 'PROXY:8080'
SITE           = 'www.whitepages.com.au'

connection     = None
next_page_pat  = None

results        = ''


#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#    'Accept' : 'text/plain, text/html',

get_headers = {
   'Accept-Encoding'    : 'gzip, deflate',
   'Accept'             : '*/*',
   'Accept-Language'    : 'en-au',
   'Host'               : SITE,
   'Connection'         : 'Keep-Alive',
   'User-Agent'         : 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727'
}

post_headers = {
   'Content-type'     : 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
   'Accept'           : 'text/plain'
}

idx      = 0

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def log_req_header(idx, hdr):
   of = open('log/%04d.req' % idx, 'w')
   of.write("%s\n" % pprint.pformat(hdr))
   of.close()

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def log_resp_header(idx, resp):
   of = open('log/%04d.hdr' % idx, 'w')

   of.write("resp.__dict__ ->\n%s\n\n" % pprint.pformat(resp.__dict__))
   of.write("Status %s  Reason [%s]\n" % (resp.status, resp.reason))
   of.write("Msg ->\n%s\n\n" % resp.msg)
   of.write("Msg.__dict__ ->\n%s\n\n" % pprint.pformat(resp.msg.__dict__))

   of.close()

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def log_resp_body(idx, resp_body):
   of = open('log/%04d.bdy' % idx, 'w')
   of.write(resp_body);
   of.close()

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def do(pattern, state):
   global connection
   global results

   print "Pattern ==> '%s'" % pattern

   connection  = httplib.HTTPConnection(PROXY)

   BASE_URL    = 'http://%s' % SITE

   #------------------------------------------------------------------------

   DO       = 'GET'
   URL      = BASE_URL + '/'

   headers = copy(get_headers)

   request(DO, URL, None, headers)


   #------------------------------------------------------------------------

   DO  = 'GET'
   URL = BASE_URL + '/wp/index.jsp'

   headers = copy(get_headers)

   r = request(DO, URL, None, headers)

   m = re.search('JSESSIONID=(.*);', r['response_header'].msg.__dict__['dict']['set-cookie'])

   if m:
      print m.group(1)
      JSESSIONID = m.group(1)

   print JSESSIONID

   #---------------------------------------------------------------------

   DO  = 'POST'
   URL = BASE_URL + '/wp/busSearch.do;jsessionid=%s' % JSESSIONID

   headers = copy(post_headers)

   form_data = {
      'subscriberName' : pattern,
      'state'          : state,
      'suburb'         : '',
      'street'         : '',
      'Search'         : 'Search'
   }

   params = urllib.urlencode(form_data)

   headers['Content-Length'] = len(params)
   headers['Cookie']         = 'JSESSIONID=%s' % JSESSIONID

   r = request(DO, URL, params, headers)

   xml = parse('log/%04d.bdy' % r['idx'])

   results += xml

   body = r['response_body']

   m = next_page_pat.findall(body)

   cnt = 0

   if m:
      no_pages = len(m)
      if no_pages > 0:
         for i in range(no_pages):
            print m[i]
            #print m[i].group(1)

         cnt = no_pages - 1

   #---------------------------------------------------------------------

   for i in range(cnt):

      URL = BASE_URL + '/wp/busSearch.do'

      form_data = {
         'subscriberName' : pattern,
         'state'          : state,
         'page'           : i + 1
      }

      params = urllib.urlencode(form_data)

      headers['Content-Length'] = len(params)
      headers['Cookie']         = 'JSESSIONID=%s' % JSESSIONID

      r = request(DO, URL, params, headers)

      xml = parse('log/%04d.bdy' % r['idx'])

      results += xml

   ofh = open('results.xml', 'a+')

   ofh.write(results)

   ofh.close()


#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def request(method, url, params, headers):
   global idx

   print '>>>> %s %s <<<<' % (method, url)

   connection.request(method, url, params, headers)

   resp = connection.getresponse()

   log_req_header(idx, headers)
   log_resp_header(idx, resp)

   resp_body = resp.read()

   log_resp_body(idx, resp_body)

   # print resp_body

   r = {'idx' : idx, 'request_header' : headers, 'response_header' : resp, 'response_body' : resp_body}

   idx += 1

   return r

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def process(search_patterns):
   global next_page_pat


   next_page_pat = re.compile(r';(page=[0-9]*">[0-9]*<\/a>)')

   for search_pattern in search_patterns:
     do(search_pattern, 'VIC')

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def searches():

   searches = []

   for i in range(4):
      ch = chr(ord('W') + i)
      for x in ('a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u'):
         pat  = ch + x
         searches.append(pat)

   return searches

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def used():
   searches = []
   searches.append('Zeus')

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def main():
   searches = []

   searches.append('Zany')
   searches.append('Zan')
   searches.append('Zen')
   searches.append('Zend')

   process(searches)

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

main()

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

wp_parse.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

import pprint

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def parse(fname):
   doc = open(fname, 'r')

   soup = BeautifulSoup(doc)

   # print len(soup('table', { "class" : "table_style"}))

   # tables = soup.findAll('table', { "class" : "table_style"})
   objs = soup.findAll('div', { "class" : "encap_result"})

   pp = pprint.PrettyPrinter(3)

   xml = ''

   for obj in objs:
      t = obj.find(text=True)

      if t:
         xml +=  '<entry>\n'

         #print '[[%s]]\n\n' % obj.__dict__
         # print '[[%s]]\n\n' % obj


         f    = obj.findAll('span',  { 'class' : 'black'})

         for s in f:
            xml +=  '  <tag>%s</tag>\n' % s.find(text=True)


         f    = obj.findAll('input',  { "name" : 'placeName'})

         for s in f:
            # pp.pprint(s.__dict__)
            # print 'attrMap -> "%s"' % s.attrMap
            xml += '  <placeName>%s</placeName>\n' % s.attrMap['value']


         for s in obj.findAll('input',  { "name" : 'subscriberName'}):
            xml += '  <subscriberName>%s</subscriberName>\n' % s.attrMap['value']

         for s in obj.findAll('input',  { "name" : 'address'}):
            xml += '  <address>%s</address>\n' % s.attrMap['value']

         for s in obj.findAll('input',  { "name" : 'streetNumber'}):
            xml += '  <streetNumber>%s</streetNumber>\n' % s.attrMap['value']

         for s in obj.findAll('input',  { "name" : 'streetName'}):
            xml += '  <streetName>%s</streetName>\n' % s.attrMap['value']

         for s in obj.findAll('input',  { "name" : 'streetType'}):
            xml += '  <streetType>%s</streetType>\n' % s.attrMap['value']

         for s in obj.findAll('input',  { "name" : 'locality'}):
            xml += '  <locality>%s</locality>\n' % s.attrMap['value']


         lis       = obj.findAll('li',  { "class" : None})

         for li in lis:
            xml += '  <li>%s</li>\n' % li.find(text=True)


         for address in obj.findAll('li',  { "class" : "entryData address"}):
            xml += '  <addr>%s</addr>\n' % address.find(text=True)


         for phone in obj.findAll('li',  { "class" : "entryData phoneNumber"}):
	    xml += '  <phoneNumber>%s</phoneNumber>\n' % phone.find(text=True)

         xml += '</entry>\n\n'

   return xml

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

def test():
   # xml = parse('html/0002.html')

   # print xml

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Results of Search

Are written to a file as XML.