imclab / pycrawler

A python web crawler

Setup

• Open settings.py and adjust database settings
• DATABASE_ENGINE can either be "mysql" or "sqlite"
• For sqlite only DATABASE_HOST is used, and it should begin with a '/'
• All other DATABASE_* settings are required for mysql
• DEBUG mode causes the crawler to output some stats that are generated as it goes, and other debug messages
• LOGGING is a dictConfig dictionary to log output to the console and a rotating file, and works out-of-the-box, but can be modified

Current State

• mysql engine untested
• Issue in some situations where the database is locked and queries cannot execute. Presumably an issue only with sqlite's file-based approach

Logging

• DEBUG+ level messages are logged to the console, and INFO+ level messages are logged to a file.
• By default, the file for logging uses a TimedRotatingFileHandler that rolls over at midnight
• Setting DEBUG in the settings toggles wether or not DEBUG level messages are output at all
• Setting USE_COLORS in the settings toggles whether or not messages output to the console use colors depending on the level.

Misc

• Designed to be able to run on multiple machines and work together to collect info in central DB
• Queues links into the database to be crawled. This means that any machine running the crawler with the central db can grab from the same queue. Reduces crawling redundancy.
• Thread pool apprach to analyzing keywords in text.