Web Scraper

This is a past excercise I have completed, moved to a public repo in order to demonstrate python skills.

NAME

scrap.py - Python web scraping program for extracting information from the Dramacool website

SYNOPSIS

scrap.py [--year YEAR | --years YEAR_RANGE] [--newer DATE_TIME] [--country COUNTRY] [--genre GENRE]
         [--act ACTOR] [--noact] [--ep]

DESCRIPTION

The scrap.py program is designed to scrape information from the Dramacool website, a platform for Asian dramas. It allows users to retrieve drama details based on various criteria such as release year, country, genre, and actors. By default, the program lists the most recent episodes in SUB (subtitled) and RAW (without subtitles) formats.

If the --act flag is used, the program changes its behavior and first scrapes the specified actor's page as the endpoint. This optimization allows for faster retrieval of results specific to the actor.

Either the --year/--years or --act flag must be present in the command for the program to execute successfully.

OPTIONS

• --year YEAR, --years YEAR_RANGE

  Specifies a single year or a range of years for filtering the results. The YEAR argument should be in the format "YYYY," while the YEAR_RANGE argument should be in the format "YYYY-YYYY." The program will only display dramas that fall within the specified year(s).

• --newer DATE_TIME

  Filters the episodes by listing only those released after the specified DATE_TIME. The DATE_TIME argument should be in the format "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS."

• --country COUNTRY

  Filters the dramas based on the specified COUNTRY. Only dramas from the specified country will be listed.

• --genre GENRE

  Filters the dramas based on the specified GENRE. Only dramas of the specified genre will be listed.

• --act ACTOR

  Filters the dramas by listing only those that feature the specified ACTOR. Only dramas with the specified actor will be displayed. The program optimizes the scraping process by first scraping the actor's page as the endpoint to retrieve results faster.

• --noact

  By default, the program lists the actors associated with each drama. This flag can be used to suppress the actor listing, resulting in a more concise output.

• --ep

  By default, the program lists only the most recent SUB and RAW episodes in addition to the other information. If this flag is present, only episode information will be listed. This flag is compatible with --newer DATE_TIME

EXAMPLES

scrap.py --years 1996 --country Japanese --genre comedy

List all Japanese comedy dramas released in the year 1996:

Supermarket Woman - 1996 - Japanese - Comedy
  SUB Supermarket Woman Episode 1 2015-06-01 12:16:53
Free and Easy 8 - 1996 - Japanese - Comedy
  RAW Free and Easy 8 Episode 1 2016-06-02 14:49:46
Shota no Sushi - 1996 - Japanese - Comedy - Kashiwabara Takashi (1977), Sugimoto Tetta (1965), Imada Koji (1966), Kitahara Masaki (1940)
  SUB Shota no Sushi Episode 17 2014-12-03 14:18:09
Shall We Dance? - 1996 - Japanese - Comedy
  SUB Shall We Dance? Episode 1 2019-06-05 19:06:48

SEE ALSO

For more information about web scraping using Python, refer to the documentation of libraries such as BeautifulSoup and Requests.