How to download multiple files and images from a website using python

Question

So I am trying to download multiple files from a give a website and saving into a folder. I am trying to get highway data and in their website (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/mapsdata/tools/InterchangeViewer/SR5.htm) is a list of pdf links. I want to create a code that will extract the numerous pdfs found on their website. Maybe creating a loop that will go through the website and extract and save each file into a local folder onto my desktop.does anyone know how I can do that?

Answer 1

That's a problem that requires a coding solution. I can point you to some tools to use to accomplish this, but not a full code solution.

Request Library: Communicating with HTTP Server (websites)

http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/

BeautifulSoup: Html Parser (website source code parsing)

http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/bs4/doc/

Example:

>>> import requests
>>> from bs4 import BeautifulSoup as BS
>>> 
>>> response = requests.get('http://news.ycombinator.com')
>>> response.status_code # 200 == OK
200
>>> 
>>> soup = BS(response.text) # Create a html parsing object
>>>
>>> soup.title # Heres the browser title tag
<title>Hacker News</title>
>>>
>>> soup.title.text # The contents of the tag
u'Hacker News'
>>> 
>>> # Heres some article posts
... 
>>> post_containers = soup.find_all('tr', attrs={'class':'athing'})
>>> 
>>> print 'There are %d article posts.' % len(post_containers)
There are 30 article posts.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> # The article name is the 3rd and last object in a post_container
... 
>>> for container in post_containers:
...     title = container.contents[-1] # The last tag
...     title.a.text # Grab the `a` tag inside our titile tag, print the text
... 
u'Show HN: \u201cWho is hiring?\u201d Map'
u'\u2018Flash Boys\u2019 Programmer in Goldman Case Prevails Second Time'
u'Forthcoming OpenSSL releases'
u'Show HN: YouTube Filesystem \u2013 YTFS'
u'Google launches Uber rival RideWith'
u'Finish your stuff'
u'The Plan to Feed the World by Hacking Photosynthesis'
u'New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft'
u'Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data'
u'Show HN: Proof of concept \u2013 Realtime single page apps'
u'Berkeley CS 61AS \u2013 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Self-Paced'
u'An evaluation of Erlang global process registries: meet Syn'
u'Show HN: Nearby Buzz \u2013\xa0Take control of your online reviews'
u"The Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound"
u'The Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Human and Animal Health'
u'JsCoq'
u'Taking stock of startup innovation in the Netherlands'
u'Hangout: Becoming a freelance developer'
u'Panning for Pangrams: The Search for the New Quick Brown Fox'
u'Show HN: MUI \u2013 Lightweight CSS Framework for Material Design'
u"Intel's 10nm 'Cannonlake' delayed, replaced by 14nm 'Kaby Lake'"
u'VP of Logistics \u2013 EasyPost (YC S13) Hiring'
u'Colorado\u2019s Effort Against Teenage Pregnancies Is a Startling Success'
u'Lexical Scanning in Go (2011)'
u'Avoiding traps in software development with systems thinking'
u"Apache Cordova: after 10 months, I won't using it anymore"
u'An exercise in profiling a Go program'
u"The Science of Pixar's \u2018Inside Out\u2019"
u'Ask HN: What tech blogs, podcasts do you follow outside of HN?'
u'NASA\u2019s New Horizons Plans July 7 Return to Normal Science Operations'
>>>