scrapy/docs/topics/items.rst

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Items

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.. module:: scrapy.item
   :synopsis: Item and Field classes

The main goal in scraping is to extract structured data from unstructured sources, typically web pages. :ref:`Spiders <topics-spiders>` may return the extracted data as items, Python objects that define key-value pairs.

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Scrapy supports :ref:`multiple types of items <item-types>`. When you create an item, you may use whichever type of item you want. When you write code that receives an item, your code should :ref:`work for any item type <supporting-item-types>`.

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Item Types

Scrapy supports the following types of items via the itemadapter library: :ref:`dictionaries <dict-items>`, :ref:`Item objects <item-objects>`, :ref:`dataclass objects <dataclass-items>`, and :ref:`attrs objects <attrs-items>`.

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Dictionaries

As an item type, :class:`dict` is convenient and familiar.

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Item objects

:class:`Item` provides a :class:`dict`-like API plus additional features that make it the most feature-complete item type:

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.. autoclass:: scrapy.Item
   :members: copy, deepcopy, fields
   :undoc-members:

:class:`Item` objects replicate the standard :class:`dict` API, including its __init__ method.

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:class:`Item` allows you to define field names, so that:

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  • :class:`KeyError` is raised when using undefined field names (i.e. prevents typos from going unnoticed)

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  • :ref:`Item exporters <topics-exporters>` can export all fields by default even if the first scraped object does not have values for all of them

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:class:`Item` also lets you define field metadata, which can be used to :ref:`customize serialization <topics-exporters-field-serialization>`.

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:mod:`trackref` tracks :class:`Item` objects to help find memory leaks (see :ref:`topics-leaks-trackrefs`).

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Example:

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.. code-block:: python

    from scrapy.item import Item, Field


    class CustomItem(Item):
        one_field = Field()
        another_field = Field()

Dataclass objects

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.. versionadded:: 2.2

:func:`~dataclasses.dataclass` allows you to define item classes with field names, so that :ref:`item exporters <topics-exporters>` can export all fields by default even if the first scraped object does not have values for all of them.

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Additionally, dataclass items allow you to:

Example:

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.. code-block:: python

    from dataclasses import dataclass


    @dataclass
    class CustomItem:
        one_field: str
        another_field: int

Note

Field types are not enforced at run time.

attr.s objects

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.. versionadded:: 2.2

:func:`attr.s` allows you to define item classes with field names, so that :ref:`item exporters <topics-exporters>` can export all fields by default even if the first scraped object does not have values for all of them.

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Additionally, attr.s items allow you to:

To use this type, the :doc:`attrs package <attrs:index>` needs to be installed.

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Example:

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.. code-block:: python

    import attr


    @attr.s
    class CustomItem:
        one_field = attr.ib()
        another_field = attr.ib()


Working with Item objects

Declaring Item subclasses

Item subclasses are declared using a simple class definition syntax and :class:`Field` objects. Here is an example:

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.. code-block:: python

    import scrapy


    class Product(scrapy.Item):
        name = scrapy.Field()
        price = scrapy.Field()
        stock = scrapy.Field()
        tags = scrapy.Field()
        last_updated = scrapy.Field(serializer=str)

Note

Those familiar with Django will notice that Scrapy items are declared similarly to Django Models, except that Scrapy items are much simpler as there is no concept of different field types.

Declaring fields

:class:`Field` objects are used to specify metadata for each field. For example, they can store the serializer function for the last_updated field illustrated above.

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You can specify any kind of metadata for each field. There is no restriction on the values accepted by :class:`Field` objects. For this same reason, there is no reference list of all available metadata keys. Each key defined in :class:`Field` objects could be used by a different component, and only those components know about it. You can also define and use any other :class:`Field` key in your project too, for your own needs. The main goal of :class:`Field` objects is to provide a way to define all field metadata in one place. Typically, those components whose behavior depends on each field use certain field keys to configure that behavior. You must refer to their documentation to see which metadata keys are used by each component.

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It's important to note that the :class:`Field` objects used to declare the item do not stay assigned as class attributes. Instead, they can be accessed through the :attr:`~scrapy.Item.fields` attribute.

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.. autoclass:: scrapy.Field

    The :class:`Field` class is just an alias to the built-in :class:`dict` class and
    doesn't provide any extra functionality or attributes. In other words,
    :class:`Field` objects are plain-old Python dicts. A separate class is used
    to support the :ref:`item declaration syntax <topics-items-declaring>`
    based on class attributes.

Note

Field metadata can also be declared for dataclass and attrs items. Please refer to the documentation for dataclasses.field and attr.ib for additional information.

Working with Item objects

Here are some examples of common tasks performed with items, using the Product item :ref:`declared above <topics-items-declaring>`. You will notice the API is very similar to the :class:`dict` API.

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Creating items

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.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> product = Product(name="Desktop PC", price=1000)
    >>> print(product)
    Product(name='Desktop PC', price=1000)


Getting field values

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.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> product["name"]
    Desktop PC
    >>> product.get("name")
    Desktop PC

    >>> product["price"]
    1000

    >>> product["last_updated"]
    Traceback (most recent call last):
        ...
    KeyError: 'last_updated'

    >>> product.get("last_updated", "not set")
    not set

    >>> product["lala"]  # getting unknown field
    Traceback (most recent call last):
        ...
    KeyError: 'lala'

    >>> product.get("lala", "unknown field")
    'unknown field'

    >>> "name" in product  # is name field populated?
    True

    >>> "last_updated" in product  # is last_updated populated?
    False

    >>> "last_updated" in product.fields  # is last_updated a declared field?
    True

    >>> "lala" in product.fields  # is lala a declared field?
    False


Setting field values

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.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> product["last_updated"] = "today"
    >>> product["last_updated"]
    today

    >>> product["lala"] = "test"  # setting unknown field
    Traceback (most recent call last):
        ...
    KeyError: 'Product does not support field: lala'


Accessing all populated values

To access all populated values, just use the typical :class:`dict` API:

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.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> product.keys()
    ['price', 'name']

    >>> product.items()
    [('price', 1000), ('name', 'Desktop PC')]


Copying items

To copy an item, you must first decide whether you want a shallow copy or a deep copy.

If your item contains :term:`mutable` values like lists or dictionaries, a shallow copy will keep references to the same mutable values across all different copies.

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For example, if you have an item with a list of tags, and you create a shallow copy of that item, both the original item and the copy have the same list of tags. Adding a tag to the list of one of the items will add the tag to the other item as well.

If that is not the desired behavior, use a deep copy instead.

See :mod:`copy` for more information.

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To create a shallow copy of an item, you can either call :meth:`~scrapy.Item.copy` on an existing item (product2 = product.copy()) or instantiate your item class from an existing item (product2 = Product(product)).

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To create a deep copy, call :meth:`~scrapy.Item.deepcopy` instead (product2 = product.deepcopy()).

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Other common tasks

Creating dicts from items:

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.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> dict(product)  # create a dict from all populated values
    {'price': 1000, 'name': 'Desktop PC'}

Creating items from dicts:

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.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> Product({"name": "Laptop PC", "price": 1500})
    Product(price=1500, name='Laptop PC')

    >>> Product({"name": "Laptop PC", "lala": 1500})  # warning: unknown field in dict
    Traceback (most recent call last):
        ...
    KeyError: 'Product does not support field: lala'


Extending Item subclasses

You can extend items (to add more fields or to change some metadata for some fields) by declaring a subclass of your original item.

For example:

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.. code-block:: python

    class DiscountedProduct(Product):
        discount_percent = scrapy.Field(serializer=str)
        discount_expiration_date = scrapy.Field()

You can also extend field metadata by using the previous field metadata and appending more values, or changing existing values, like this:

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.. code-block:: python

    class SpecificProduct(Product):
        name = scrapy.Field(Product.fields["name"], serializer=my_serializer)

That adds (or replaces) the serializer metadata key for the name field, keeping all the previously existing metadata values.

Supporting All Item Types

In code that receives an item, such as methods of :ref:`item pipelines <topics-item-pipeline>` or :ref:`spider middlewares <topics-spider-middleware>`, it is good practice to use the :class:`~itemadapter.ItemAdapter` class to write code that works for any supported item type.

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