ayakashivsmechanize
Ayakashi is a web scraping library for Node.js that allows developers to easily extract structured data from websites. It is built on top of the popular "puppeteer" library and provides a simple and intuitive API for defining and querying the structure of a website.
Features:
- Powerful querying and data models
Ayakashi's way of finding things in the page and using them is done with props and domQL. Directly inspired by the relational database world (and SQL), domQL makes DOM access easy and readable no matter how obscure the page's structure is. Props are the way to package domQL expressions as re-usable structures which can then be passed around to actions or to be used as models for data extraction. - High level builtin actions
Ready made actions so you can focus on what matters. Easily handle infinite scrolling, single page navigation, events and more. Plus, you can always build your own actions, either from scratch or by composing other actions. - Preload code on pages
Need to include a bunch of code, a library you made or a 3rd party module and make it available on a page? Preloaders have you covered.
Mechanize is a Ruby library for automating interaction with websites. It automatically stores and sends cookies, follows redirects, and can submit forms — making it behave like a web browser without needing an actual browser engine.
Key features include:
- Automatic cookie management Stores cookies received from servers and sends them back on subsequent requests, maintaining session state across multiple pages.
- Form handling Can find, fill in, and submit HTML forms programmatically. Supports text inputs, selects, checkboxes, radio buttons, and file uploads.
- Link following Navigate through pages by clicking links using their text content, CSS selectors, or href patterns.
- History and back/forward Maintains a browsing history, allowing you to go back and forward through visited pages.
- HTTP authentication Supports basic and digest HTTP authentication.
- Proxy support Can route requests through HTTP proxies.
- Redirect handling Automatically follows HTTP redirects (configurable).
Mechanize is one of the oldest and most established web interaction libraries in Ruby. It is best suited for scraping traditional server-rendered websites with forms and multi-page workflows. For JavaScript-heavy sites, a browser automation tool like Selenium or Playwright is recommended instead.