Xpath doesn't return <table> content within <a> (<tbody> is not the issue)

Question

The following code is using scrapy + scrapy-splash + Python. I am trying to extract the upcoming matches (which includes: team names, tournament name, start time) from this site: https://www.hltv.org/matches

My code in the callback 'parse' function is:

    match_days = response.xpath("//div[@class = 'upcoming-matches']//div[@class = 'match-day']")
    for match in match_days.xpath("./a"):
        print(match.extract()) 
        # tournament_name = match.xpath(".//td[@class='event']//span[@class='event-name']/text()").extract_first()
        # team1_name = match.xpath(".//td[@class='team-cell'][1]//div[@class='team']/text()").extract_first()

It is supposed to get me the contents for every "< a >" element (i.e. should look something like this e.g.:

<a href="/matches/2318355/dkiss-vs-psychoactive-prowince-winner-winner-of-the-future-2017" class="a-reset block upcoming-match standard-box" data-zonedgrouping-entry-unix="1514028600000">
   <table class="table">
      <tbody>
         <tr>
            <td class="time">
               <div class="time" data-time-format="HH:mm" data-unix="1514028600000">12:30</div>
            </td>
            <td class="team-cell">
               <div class="line-align">
                  <img alt="DKISS" src="https://static.hltv.org/images/team/logo/8657" class="logo" title="DKISS">
                  <div class="team">DKISS</div>
               </div>
            </td>
            <td class="vs">vs</td>
            <td class="team-cell">
               <div class="team">PSYCHOACTIVE/proWince winner</div>
            </td>
            <td class="event"><img alt="Winner of the Future 2017" src="https://static.hltv.org/images/eventLogos/3464.png" class="event-logo" title="Winner of the Future 2017"><span class="event-name">Winner of the Future 2017</span></td>
            <td class="star-cell">
               <div class="map-text">bo3</div>
            </td>
         </tr>
      </tbody>
   </table>
</a>

But I only get this for each "< a >" :

<a href="/matches/2318355/dkiss-vs-psychoactive-prowince-winner-winner-of-the-future-2017" class="a-reset block upcoming-match standard-box" data-zonedgrouping-entry-unix="1514028600000">
</a>

I have tried this in the scrapy shell and the same result.

I tried on Chrome Developer tools and I can see all the contents for each "< a >" in the innerHTML property.

I don't believe the issue is with "< tbody >" as I have come to understand that it is omitted in some cases and added by web browsers, because when I print out the html contents of the returned page from the "response" "< tbody >" is there (by the way, I use a lua script via scrapy-splash to make a POST request to the url and get the html page)

Does anyone know why this is happening? I have spent past couple of days on this with no answer, nor have I any ideas on what more to test to figure why this is happening when it shouldn't be.

Thank you.

furas furas · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-24T00:31:30

With css selector it was easier for me.

import scrapy

class MySpider(scrapy.Spider):

    name = 'myspider'

    start_urls = ['https://www.hltv.org/matches']

    def parse(self, response):
        print('url:', response.url)

        days = response.css('.match-day')

        for day in days:

            date = day.css('.standard-headline::text').extract_first()
            print('date:', date)

            tables = day.css('table')

            for table in tables:

                time = table.css('div.time::text').extract_first()
                teams = table.css('.team::text').extract()
                event = table.css('.event-name::text').extract_first()
                placeholder = table.css('.placeholder-text-cell::text').extract_first()

                print('  time:', time)
                if teams:
                    print('    teams 1:', teams[0])
                    print('    teams 2:', teams[1])
                    print('    event:', event)
                else:
                    print('    placeholder:', placeholder)

# --- it runs without project and saves in `output.csv` ---

from scrapy.crawler import CrawlerProcess

c = CrawlerProcess({
    'USER_AGENT': 'Mozilla/5.0',
    # save in file as CSV, JSON or XML
    'FEED_FORMAT': 'csv',     # csv, json, xml
    'FEED_URI': 'output.csv', # 
})
c.crawl(MySpider)
c.start()

Result

url: https://www.hltv.org/matches

date: 2017-12-24
  time: 03:00
    teams 1: NSPR
    teams 2: MiTH
    event: WESG 2017 Thailand LAN
  time: 06:00
    teams 1: Signature
    teams 2: Beyond
    event: WESG 2017 Thailand LAN
  time: 09:00
    placeholder: WESG Thailand - Grand Final
  time: 10:00
    teams 1: DKISS
    teams 2: Izako Boars
    event: Winner of the Future 2017
date: 2017-12-26
  time: 14:00
    teams 1: Recca
    teams 2: Signature
    event: GOTV.GG Invitational #1
  time: 17:00
    teams 1: AGO
    teams 2: Vega Squadron
    event: LOOT.BET Cup 2
  time: 20:00
    teams 1: mousesports
    teams 2: Spirit
    event: LOOT.BET Cup 2
date: 2017-12-27
  time: 12:00
    teams 1: Singularity
    teams 2: GoodJob
    event: CSesport.com XMAS Cup
  time: 13:00
    placeholder: GOTV.GG - Semi-Final #1
  time: 15:00
    placeholder: GOTV.GG - Semi-Final #2
  time: 15:00
    teams 1: MANS NOT HOT
    teams 2: VenatoreS
    event: CSesport.com XMAS Cup
  time: 17:00
    teams 1: Heroic
    teams 2: Valiance
    event: LOOT.BET Cup 2
date: 2017-12-28
  time: 13:00
    placeholder: GOTV.GG - 3rd place decider
  time: 15:00
    placeholder: GOTV.GG - Grand Final

Xpath doesn't return <table> content within <a> (<tbody> is not the issue)

1 Answers