Screen scraping with Colly in Go
Programming Snapshot – Colly
Lead Image © Hannu Viitanen, 123RF.com
The Colly scraper helps developers who work with the Go programming language to collect data off the web. Mike Schilli illustrates the capabilities of this powerful tool with a few practical examples.
As long as there are websites to view for the masses of browser customers on the web, there will also be individuals on the consumer side who want the data in a different format and write scraper scripts to automatically extract the data to fit their needs.
Many sites do not like the idea of users scraping their data. Check the website's terms of service for more information, and be aware of the copyright laws for your jurisdiction. In general, as long as the scrapers do not republish or commercially exploit the data, or bombard the website too overtly with their requests, nobody is likely to get too upset about it.
Different languages offer different tools for this. Perl aficionados will probably appreciate the qualities of WWW::Mechanize as a scraping tool, while Python fans might prefer the selenium package [1]. In Go, there are several projects dedicated to scraping that attempt to woo developers.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.