Scraping javascript website

Question

I'm able to scrape data off of basic html pages, but I'm having trouble scraping off the site below. It looks like the data is presented via javascript, and I'm not sure how to approach that issue. I'd prefer to use R to scrape, if possible, but could also use Python.

Any ideas/suggestions?

Edit: I need to grab the Year/Manufacturer/Model, the S/N, the Price, the Location, and the short description (starts with "Auction:") for each listing.

http://www.machinerytrader.com/list/list.aspx?bcatid=4&DidSearch=1&EID=1&LP=MAT&ETID=5&catid=1015&mdlx=Contains&Cond=All&SO=26&btnSearch=Search&units=imperial

Answer 1

library(XML) 
library(relenium)

##downloading website
website<- firefoxClass$new() 
website$get("http://www.machinerytrader.com/list/list.aspx?pg=1&bcatid=4&DidSearch=1&EID=1&LP=MAT&ETID=5&catid=1015&mdlx=Contains&Cond=All&SO=26&btnSearch=Search&units=imperial") 
doc <- htmlParse(website$getPageSource())

##reading tables and binding the information
tables <- readHTMLTable(doc, stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
data<-do.call("rbind", tables[seq(from=8, to=56, by=2)])
data<-cbind(data, sapply(lapply(tables[seq(from=9, to=57, by=2)],  '[[', i=2), '[', 1))
rownames(data)<-NULL
names(data) <- c("year.man.model", "s.n", "price", "location", "auction")

This will give you what you want for the first page (showing just the first two lines here):

head(data,2)
      year.man.model      s.n      price location                                               auction
1 1972 AMERICAN 5530 GS14745W US $50,100       MI                   Auction: 1/9/2013; 4,796 Hours;  ..
2 AUSTIN-WESTERN 307      307  US $3,400       MT Auction: 12/18/2013;  AUSTIN-WESTERN track excavator.

To get all pages, just loop over them, pasting the pg=i in the address.

Answer 2

Using Relenium:

require(relenium) # More info: https://github.com/LluisRamon/relenium
require(XML)
firefox <- firefoxClass$new() # init browser
res <- NULL
pages <- 1:2
for (page in pages) {
  url <- sprintf("http://www.machinerytrader.com/list/list.aspx?pg=%d&bcatid=4&DidSearch=1&EID=1&LP=MAT&ETID=5&catid=1015&mdlx=Contains&Cond=All&SO=26&btnSearch=Search&units=imperial", page)
  firefox$get(url) 
  doc <- htmlParse(firefox$getPageSource())
  res <- rbind(res, 
               cbind(year_manu_model = xpathSApply(doc, '//table[substring(@id, string-length(@id)-15) = "tblListingHeader"]/tbody/tr/td[1]', xmlValue),
                     sn = xpathSApply(doc, '//table[substring(@id, string-length(@id)-15) = "tblListingHeader"]/tbody/tr/td[2]', xmlValue),
                     price = xpathSApply(doc, '//table[substring(@id, string-length(@id)-15) = "tblListingHeader"]/tbody/tr/td[3]', xmlValue),
                     loc = xpathSApply(doc, '//table[substring(@id, string-length(@id)-15) = "tblListingHeader"]/tbody/tr/td[4]', xmlValue),
                     auc = xpathSApply(doc, '//table[substring(@id, string-length(@id)-9) = "tblContent"]/tbody/tr/td[2]', xmlValue))
  )
}
sapply(as.data.frame(res), substr, 0, 30)                        
#      year_manu_model                  sn               price         loc   auc                               
# [1,] " 1972 AMERICAN 5530"            "GS14745W"       "US $50,100"  "MI " "\n\t\t\t\t\tAuction: 1/9/2013; 4,796" 
# [2,] " AUSTIN-WESTERN 307"            "307"            "US $3,400"   "MT " "\n\t\t\t\t\tDetails & Photo(s)Video(" 
# ...