# HTTP requests
The `Fetcher` class provides rapid and lightweight HTTP requests using the high-performance `curl_cffi` library with a lot of stealth capabilities.
!!! success "Prerequisites"
1. You've completed or read the [Fetchers basics](../fetching/choosing.md) page to understand what the [Response object](../fetching/choosing.md#response-object) is and which fetcher to use.
2. You've completed or read the [Querying elements](../parsing/selection.md) page to understand how to find/extract elements from the [Selector](../parsing/main_classes.md#selector)/[Response](../fetching/choosing.md#response-object) object.
3. You've completed or read the [Main classes](../parsing/main_classes.md) page to know what properties/methods the [Response](../fetching/choosing.md#response-object) class is inheriting from the [Selector](../parsing/main_classes.md#selector) class.
## Basic Usage
You have one primary way to import this Fetcher, which is the same for all fetchers.
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
```
Check out how to configure the parsing options [here](choosing.md#parser-configuration-in-all-fetchers)
### Shared arguments
All methods for making requests here share some arguments, so let's discuss them first.
- **url**: The targeted URL
- **stealthy_headers**: If enabled (default), it creates and adds real browser headers. It also sets the referer header as if this request came from a Google search of the URL's domain.
- **follow_redirects**: As the name implies, tell the fetcher to follow redirections. **Enabled by default**
- **timeout**: The number of seconds to wait for each request to be finished. **Defaults to 30 seconds**.
- **retries**: The number of retries that the fetcher will do for failed requests. **Defaults to three retries**.
- **retry_delay**: Number of seconds to wait between retry attempts. **Defaults to 1 second**.
- **impersonate**: Impersonate specific browsers' TLS fingerprints. Accepts browser strings or a list of them like `"chrome110"`, `"firefox102"`, `"safari15_5"` to use specific versions or `"chrome"`, `"firefox"`, `"safari"`, `"edge"` to automatically use the latest version available. This makes your requests appear to come from real browsers at the TLS level. If you pass it a list of strings, it will choose a random one with each request. **Defaults to the latest available Chrome version.**
- **http3**: Use HTTP/3 protocol for requests. **Defaults to False**. It might be problematic if used with `impersonate`.
- **cookies**: Cookies to use in the request. Can be a dictionary of `name→value` or a list of dictionaries.
- **proxy**: As the name implies, the proxy for this request is used to route all traffic (HTTP and HTTPS). The format accepted here is `http://username:password@localhost:8030`.
- **proxy_auth**: HTTP basic auth for proxy, tuple of (username, password).
- **proxies**: Dict of proxies to use. Format: `{"http": proxy_url, "https": proxy_url}`.
- **proxy_rotator**: A `ProxyRotator` instance for automatic proxy rotation. Cannot be combined with `proxy` or `proxies`.
- **headers**: Headers to include in the request. Can override any header generated by the `stealthy_headers` argument
- **max_redirects**: Maximum number of redirects. **Defaults to 30**, use -1 for unlimited.
- **verify**: Whether to verify HTTPS certificates. **Defaults to True**.
- **cert**: Tuple of (cert, key) filenames for the client certificate.
- **selector_config**: A dictionary of custom parsing arguments to be used when creating the final `Selector`/`Response` class.
!!! note "Notes:"
1. The currently available browsers to impersonate are (`"edge"`, `"chrome"`, `"chrome_android"`, `"safari"`, `"safari_beta"`, `"safari_ios"`, `"safari_ios_beta"`, `"firefox"`, `"tor"`)
2. The available browsers to impersonate, along with their corresponding versions, are automatically displayed in the argument autocompletion and updated with each `curl_cffi` update.
3. If any of the arguments `impersonate` or `stealthy_headers` are enabled, the fetchers will automatically generate real browser headers that match the browser version used.
Other than this, for further customization, you can pass any arguments that `curl_cffi` supports for any method if that method doesn't already support them.
### HTTP Methods
There are additional arguments for each method, depending on the method, such as `params` for GET requests and `data`/`json` for POST/PUT/DELETE requests.
Examples are the best way to explain this:
> Hence: `OPTIONS` and `HEAD` methods are not supported.
#### GET
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
>>> # Basic GET
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com')
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/get', stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True)
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/get', proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030')
>>> # With parameters
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com/search', params={'q': 'query'})
>>>
>>> # With headers
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com', headers={'User-Agent': 'Custom/1.0'})
>>> # Basic HTTP authentication
>>> page = Fetcher.get("https://example.com", auth=("my_user", "password123"))
>>> # Browser impersonation
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com', impersonate='chrome')
>>> # HTTP/3 support
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com', http3=True)
```
And for asynchronous requests, it's a small adjustment
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import AsyncFetcher
>>> # Basic GET
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get('https://example.com')
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/get', stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True)
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/get', proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030')
>>> # With parameters
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get('https://example.com/search', params={'q': 'query'})
>>>
>>> # With headers
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get('https://example.com', headers={'User-Agent': 'Custom/1.0'})
>>> # Basic HTTP authentication
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get("https://example.com", auth=("my_user", "password123"))
>>> # Browser impersonation
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get('https://example.com', impersonate='chrome110')
>>> # HTTP/3 support
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.get('https://example.com', http3=True)
```
Needless to say, the `page` object in all cases is [Response](choosing.md#response-object) object, which is a [Selector](../parsing/main_classes.md#selector) as we said, so you can use it directly
```python
>>> page.css('.something.something')
>>> page = Fetcher.get('https://api.github.com/events')
>>> page.json()
[{'id': '',
'type': 'PushEvent',
'actor': {'id': '',
'login': '',
'display_login': '',
'gravatar_id': '',
'url': 'https://api.github.com/users/',
'avatar_url': 'https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/'},
'repo': {'id': '',
...
```
#### POST
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
>>> # Basic POST
>>> page = Fetcher.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', data={'key': 'value'}, params={'q': 'query'})
>>> page = Fetcher.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', data={'key': 'value'}, stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True)
>>> page = Fetcher.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', data={'key': 'value'}, proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030', impersonate="chrome")
>>> # Another example of form-encoded data
>>> page = Fetcher.post('https://example.com/submit', data={'username': 'user', 'password': 'pass'}, http3=True)
>>> # JSON data
>>> page = Fetcher.post('https://example.com/api', json={'key': 'value'})
```
And for asynchronous requests, it's a small adjustment
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import AsyncFetcher
>>> # Basic POST
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', data={'key': 'value'})
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', data={'key': 'value'}, stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True)
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', data={'key': 'value'}, proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030', impersonate="chrome")
>>> # Another example of form-encoded data
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.post('https://example.com/submit', data={'username': 'user', 'password': 'pass'}, http3=True)
>>> # JSON data
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.post('https://example.com/api', json={'key': 'value'})
```
#### PUT
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
>>> # Basic PUT
>>> page = Fetcher.put('https://example.com/update', data={'status': 'updated'})
>>> page = Fetcher.put('https://example.com/update', data={'status': 'updated'}, stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True, impersonate="chrome")
>>> page = Fetcher.put('https://example.com/update', data={'status': 'updated'}, proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030')
>>> # Another example of form-encoded data
>>> page = Fetcher.put("https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/put", data={'key': ['value1', 'value2']})
```
And for asynchronous requests, it's a small adjustment
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import AsyncFetcher
>>> # Basic PUT
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.put('https://example.com/update', data={'status': 'updated'})
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.put('https://example.com/update', data={'status': 'updated'}, stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True, impersonate="chrome")
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.put('https://example.com/update', data={'status': 'updated'}, proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030')
>>> # Another example of form-encoded data
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.put("https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/put", data={'key': ['value1', 'value2']})
```
#### DELETE
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
>>> page = Fetcher.delete('https://example.com/resource/123')
>>> page = Fetcher.delete('https://example.com/resource/123', stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True, impersonate="chrome")
>>> page = Fetcher.delete('https://example.com/resource/123', proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030')
```
And for asynchronous requests, it's a small adjustment
```python
>>> from scrapling.fetchers import AsyncFetcher
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.delete('https://example.com/resource/123')
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.delete('https://example.com/resource/123', stealthy_headers=True, follow_redirects=True, impersonate="chrome")
>>> page = await AsyncFetcher.delete('https://example.com/resource/123', proxy='http://username:password@localhost:8030')
```
## Session Management
For making multiple requests with the same configuration, use the `FetcherSession` class. It can be used in both synchronous and asynchronous code without issue; the class automatically detects and changes the session type, without requiring a different import.
The `FetcherSession` class can accept nearly all the arguments that the methods can take, which enables you to specify a config for the entire session and later choose a different config for one of the requests effortlessly, as you will see in the following examples.
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import FetcherSession
# Create a session with default configuration
with FetcherSession(
impersonate='chrome',
http3=True,
stealthy_headers=True,
timeout=30,
retries=3
) as session:
# Make multiple requests with the same settings and the same cookies
page1 = session.get('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/get')
page2 = session.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', data={'key': 'value'})
page3 = session.get('https://api.github.com/events')
# All requests share the same session and connection pool
```
You can also use a `ProxyRotator` with `FetcherSession` for automatic proxy rotation across requests:
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import FetcherSession, ProxyRotator
rotator = ProxyRotator([
'http://proxy1:8080',
'http://proxy2:8080',
'http://proxy3:8080',
])
with FetcherSession(proxy_rotator=rotator, impersonate='chrome') as session:
# Each request automatically uses the next proxy in rotation
page1 = session.get('https://example.com/page1')
page2 = session.get('https://example.com/page2')
# You can check which proxy was used via the response metadata
print(page1.meta['proxy'])
```
You can also override the session proxy (or rotator) for a specific request by passing `proxy=` directly to the request method:
```python
with FetcherSession(proxy='http://default-proxy:8080') as session:
# Uses the session proxy
page1 = session.get('https://example.com/page1')
# Override the proxy for this specific request
page2 = session.get('https://example.com/page2', proxy='http://special-proxy:9090')
```
And here's an async example
```python
async with FetcherSession(impersonate='firefox', http3=True) as session:
# All standard HTTP methods available
response = await session.get('https://example.com')
response = await session.post('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/post', json={'data': 'value'})
response = await session.put('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/put', data={'update': 'info'})
response = await session.delete('https://scrapling.requestcatcher.com/delete')
```
or better
```python
import asyncio
from scrapling.fetchers import FetcherSession
# Async session usage
async with FetcherSession(impersonate="safari") as session:
urls = ['https://example.com/page1', 'https://example.com/page2']
tasks = [
session.get(url) for url in urls
]
pages = await asyncio.gather(*tasks)
```
The `Fetcher` class uses `FetcherSession` to create a temporary session with each request you make.
### Session Benefits
- **A lot faster**: 10 times faster than creating a single session for each request
- **Cookie persistence**: Automatic cookie handling across requests
- **Resource efficiency**: Better memory and CPU usage for multiple requests
- **Centralized configuration**: Single place to manage request settings
## Examples
Some well-rounded examples to aid newcomers to Web Scraping
### Basic HTTP Request
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
# Make a request
page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com')
# Check the status
if page.status == 200:
# Extract title
title = page.css('title::text').get()
print(f"Page title: {title}")
# Extract all links
links = page.css('a::attr(href)').getall()
print(f"Found {len(links)} links")
```
### Product Scraping
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
def scrape_products():
page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com/products')
# Find all product elements
products = page.css('.product')
results = []
for product in products:
results.append({
'title': product.css('.title::text').get(),
'price': product.css('.price::text').re_first(r'\d+\.\d{2}'),
'description': product.css('.description::text').get(),
'in_stock': product.has_class('in-stock')
})
return results
```
### Downloading Files
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
page = Fetcher.get('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/D4Vinci/Scrapling/main/images/main_cover.png')
with open(file='main_cover.png', mode='wb') as f:
f.write(page.body)
```
### Pagination Handling
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
def scrape_all_pages():
base_url = 'https://example.com/products?page={}'
page_num = 1
all_products = []
while True:
# Get current page
page = Fetcher.get(base_url.format(page_num))
# Find products
products = page.css('.product')
if not products:
break
# Process products
for product in products:
all_products.append({
'name': product.css('.name::text').get(),
'price': product.css('.price::text').get()
})
# Next page
page_num += 1
return all_products
```
### Form Submission
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
# Submit login form
response = Fetcher.post(
'https://example.com/login',
data={
'username': 'user@example.com',
'password': 'password123'
}
)
# Check login success
if response.status == 200:
# Extract user info
user_name = response.css('.user-name::text').get()
print(f"Logged in as: {user_name}")
```
### Table Extraction
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
def extract_table():
page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com/data')
# Find table
table = page.css('table')[0]
# Extract headers
headers = [
th.text for th in table.css('thead th')
]
# Extract rows
rows = []
for row in table.css('tbody tr'):
cells = [td.text for td in row.css('td')]
rows.append(dict(zip(headers, cells)))
return rows
```
### Navigation Menu
```python
from scrapling.fetchers import Fetcher
def extract_menu():
page = Fetcher.get('https://example.com')
# Find navigation
nav = page.css('nav')[0]
menu = {}
for item in nav.css('li'):
links = item.css('a')
if links:
link = links[0]
menu[link.text] = {
'url': link['href'],
'has_submenu': bool(item.css('.submenu'))
}
return menu
```
## When to Use
Use `Fetcher` when:
- Need rapid HTTP requests.
- Want minimal overhead.
- Don't need JavaScript execution (the website can be scraped through requests).
- Need some stealth features (ex, the targeted website is using protection but doesn't use JavaScript challenges).
Use `FetcherSession` when:
- Making multiple requests to the same or different sites.
- Need to maintain cookies/authentication between requests.
- Want connection pooling for better performance.
- Require consistent configuration across requests.
- Working with APIs that require a session state.
Use other fetchers when:
- Need browser automation.
- Need advanced anti-bot/stealth capabilities.
- Need JavaScript support or interacting with dynamic content