Python Script for Scanning a Website for a Specific Tag

Currently, I am exploring the process of creating a website monitoring script (which will eventually be set up as a cron job) that can access a specified URL, verify the presence of a specific tag. If the tag is not found or does not contain the expected information, the script should record the issue in a log file or send an email notification.

The tag to be checked for could look like or something along those lines.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to accomplish this task?

Answer №1

If you're looking for a reliable solution, I recommend checking out BeautifulSoup. Here's a quick example:

import urllib2
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup

page = urllib2.urlopen("http://yoursite.com")
soup = BeautifulSoup(page)

# Consult the documentation on how to navigate through the soup. For now, this is just a basic example.

Once you have extracted the data, sending it via email or logging it should be straightforward.

Answer №2

Below is a sample snippet of Python code (not tested) that logs and sends an email:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import logging
import urllib2
import smtplib

# Log configuration
logging.basicConfig(filename='/tmp/yourscript.log', level=logging.INFO)

# Open requested URL
url = "http://yoursite.com/tags/yourTag"
data = urllib2.urlopen(url)

if check_content(data):
   # Report to log
   logging.info('Content found')
else:
   # Send email
   send_mail('Content not found')

def check_content(data):
    # Implement your BeautifulSoup logic here
    return content_found

def send_mail(message_body):
    server = 'localhost'
    recipients = ['email@example.com']
    sender = 'sender@example.com'
    message = 'From: %s \n Subject: Script Result \n\n %s' % (sender, message_body)
    session = smtplib.SMTP(server)
    session.sendmail(sender, recipients, message);

I recommend using check_content() function with the help of BeautifulSoup

Answer №3

Check out this (untested) code that utilizes urllib2 to retrieve the webpage and re to search within it.

import urllib2,StringIO

pageString = urllib2.urlopen('**insert url here**').read()
m = re.search(r'**insert regex for the desired tag here**', pageString)
if m == None:
    #take action when NOT found
else:
    #take action when found

Take a look at this (untested) code that uses pycurl and StringIO to fetch the webpage and re to search through it.

import pycurl,re,StringIO

b = StringIO.StringIO()
c = pycurl.Curl()
c.setopt(pycurl.URL, '**insert url here**')
c.setopt(pycurl.WRITEFUNCTION, b.write)
c.perform()
c.close()
m = re.search(r'**insert regex for the tag you want to find here**', b.getvalue())
if m == None:
    #take action when NOT found
else:
    #take action when found

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