scrape html generated by javascript with python

Question

I need to scrape a site with python. I obtain the source html code with the urlib module, but I need to scrape also some html code that is generated by a javascript function (which is included in the html source). What this functions does "in" the site is that when you press a button it outputs some html code. How can I "press" this button with python code? Can scrapy help me? I captured the POST request with firebug but when I try to pass it on the url I get a 403 error. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I have had to do this before (in .NET) and you are basically going to have to host a browser, get it to click the button, and then interrogate the DOM (document object model) of the browser to get at the generated HTML.

This is definitely one of the downsides to web apps moving towards an Ajax/Javascript approach to generating HTML client-side.