U.S.News Scrapper is a Python library that collects data from the website of usnews.com and output those data in a file for offline usage. Till now, it is only capable of collecting graduate schools data and output it in .xls format. After generating the .xls file, it will be opened by default excel file opener.

Make sure that Python 3 is already installed in your system.

$ pip install usnews-scrapper

alternatively you can install by Using source

First clone the repository. Then go to the repository and install the required packages using pip

$ git clone https://github.com/OvroAbir/USNews-Scrapper.git
$ cd USNews-Scrapper
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Then it can be used via command line. See Command line example

python -m usnews_scrapper [-h] -u URL [-o OUTPUTFILENAME] [-p PAUSETIME] [--from STARTPAGE] [--to ENDPAGE]

Collects data from usnews and generates excel file.

Necessary Arguments:

-u URL, --url URL     		        The usnews address to collect data from. 
                                        Put the URL within qoutes i.e. " or ' .

Optional Arguments:

-h, --help            		        Show this help message and exit
-o OUTPUTFILENAME     		        The output file name without extension.
-p PAUSETIME, --pause PAUSETIME         The pause time between loading pages from usnews.
--from STARTPAGE      		        The page number from which the scrapper starts working.
--to ENDPAGE          		        The page number to which the scrapper works.

usnews_scrapper.unsc() takes input the url as string. The other arguments are optional. This function will return absolute path to the output file.

from usnews_scrapper import unsc
unsc(url:str, output_file_name:str, pause_time:int, from_page:int, to_page:int) -> str

See Module example for examples.

Copy the address of the page from usnews website and in the Command Prompt and enter this command -

$ python -m usnews_scrapper --url="https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings" -o file_name -p 2 --from=2 --to=5 

If you want to run from the source, then enter this command instead.

$ cd USNews-Scrapper/usnews_scrapper/
$ python usnews_scrapper.py --url="https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings" -o file_name -p 2 --from=2 --to=5 

In both cases, The output file will be saved in current directory under the name of file_name_*.xls.

>>> from usnews_scrapper import unsc
>>> url = "https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings"
>>> output_file = unsc(url=url, output_file_name="output", pause_time=2, from_page=2, to_page=5)

The output_file will contain the absolute path to the output file.

• Joy Ghosh - www.ijoyghosh.com