scrapy/docs/topics/components.rst

.. _topics-components:

==========
Components
==========

A Scrapy component is any class whose objects are built using
:func:`~scrapy.utils.misc.build_from_crawler`.

That includes the classes that you may assign to the following settings:

-   :setting:`ADDONS`

-   :setting:`TWISTED_DNS_RESOLVER`

-   :setting:`DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS`

-   :setting:`DOWNLOADER_MIDDLEWARES`

-   :setting:`DUPEFILTER_CLASS`

-   :setting:`EXTENSIONS`

-   :setting:`FEED_EXPORTERS`

-   :setting:`FEED_STORAGES`

-   :setting:`ITEM_PIPELINES`

-   :setting:`SCHEDULER`

-   :setting:`SCHEDULER_DISK_QUEUE`

-   :setting:`SCHEDULER_MEMORY_QUEUE`

-   :setting:`SCHEDULER_PRIORITY_QUEUE`

-   :setting:`SCHEDULER_START_DISK_QUEUE`

-   :setting:`SCHEDULER_START_MEMORY_QUEUE`

-   :setting:`SPIDER_MIDDLEWARES`

Third-party Scrapy components may also let you define additional Scrapy
components, usually configurable through :ref:`settings <topics-settings>`, to
modify their behavior.

.. _from-crawler:

Initializing from the crawler
=============================

Any Scrapy component may optionally define the following class method:

.. classmethod:: from_crawler(cls, crawler: scrapy.crawler.Crawler, *args, **kwargs)

    Return an instance of the component based on *crawler*.

    *args* and *kwargs* are component-specific arguments that some components
    receive. However, most components do not get any arguments, and instead
    :ref:`use settings <component-settings>`.

    If a component class defines this method, this class method is called to
    create any instance of the component.

    The *crawler* object provides access to all Scrapy core components like
    :ref:`settings <topics-settings>` and :ref:`signals <topics-signals>`,
    allowing the component to access them and hook its functionality into
    Scrapy.

.. _component-settings:

Settings
========

Components can be configured through :ref:`settings <topics-settings>`.

Components can read any setting from the
:attr:`~scrapy.crawler.Crawler.settings` attribute of the
:class:`~scrapy.crawler.Crawler` object they can :ref:`get for initialization
<from-crawler>`. That includes both built-in and custom settings.

For example:

.. code-block:: python

    class MyExtension:
        @classmethod
        def from_crawler(cls, crawler):
            settings = crawler.settings
            return cls(settings.getbool("LOG_ENABLED"))

        def __init__(self, log_is_enabled=False):
            if log_is_enabled:
                print("log is enabled!")

Components do not need to declare their custom settings programmatically.
However, they should document them, so that users know they exist and how to
use them.

It is a good practice to prefix custom settings with the name of the component,
to avoid collisions with custom settings of other existing (or future)
components. For example, an extension called ``WarcCaching`` could prefix its
custom settings with ``WARC_CACHING_``.

Another good practice, mainly for components meant for :ref:`component priority
dictionaries <component-priority-dictionaries>`, is to provide a boolean setting
called ``<PREFIX>_ENABLED`` (e.g. ``WARC_CACHING_ENABLED``) to allow toggling
that component on and off without changing the component priority dictionary
setting. You can usually check the value of such a setting during
initialization, and if ``False``, raise
:exc:`~scrapy.exceptions.NotConfigured`.

When choosing a name for a custom setting, it is also a good idea to have a
look at the names of :ref:`built-in settings <topics-settings-ref>`, to try to
maintain consistency with them.

.. _enforce-component-requirements:

Enforcing requirements
======================

Sometimes, your components may only be intended to work under certain
conditions. For example, they may require a minimum version of Scrapy to work as
intended, or they may require certain settings to have specific values.

In addition to describing those conditions in the documentation of your
component, it is a good practice to raise an exception from the ``__init__``
method of your component if those conditions are not met at run time.

In the case of :ref:`downloader middlewares <topics-downloader-middleware>`,
:ref:`extensions <topics-extensions>`, :ref:`item pipelines
<topics-item-pipeline>`, and :ref:`spider middlewares
<topics-spider-middleware>`, you should raise
:exc:`~scrapy.exceptions.NotConfigured`, passing a description of the issue as
a parameter to the exception so that it is printed in the logs, for the user to
see. For other components, feel free to raise whatever other exception feels
right to you; for example, :exc:`RuntimeError` would make sense for a Scrapy
version mismatch, while :exc:`ValueError` may be better if the issue is the
value of a setting.

If your requirement is a minimum Scrapy version, you may use
:attr:`scrapy.__version__` to enforce your requirement. For example:

.. code-block:: python

    from packaging.version import parse as parse_version

    import scrapy


    class MyComponent:
        def __init__(self):
            if parse_version(scrapy.__version__) < parse_version("2.7"):
                raise RuntimeError(
                    f"{MyComponent.__qualname__} requires Scrapy 2.7 or "
                    f"later, which allow defining the process_spider_output "
                    f"method of spider middlewares as an asynchronous "
                    f"generator."
                )

API reference
=============

The following function can be used to create an instance of a component class:

.. autofunction:: scrapy.utils.misc.build_from_crawler

The following function can also be useful when implementing a component, to
report the import path of the component class, e.g. when reporting problems:

.. autofunction:: scrapy.utils.python.global_object_name