Extensions

The extensions framework provides a mechanism for inserting your own custom functionality into Scrapy.

Extensions are just regular classes that are instantiated at Scrapy startup, when extensions are initialized.

Extension settings

Extensions use the Scrapy settings to manage their settings, just like any other Scrapy code.

It is customary for extensions to prefix their settings with their own name, to avoid collision with existing (and future) extensions. For example, a hypothetic extension to handle Google Sitemaps would use settings like GOOGLESITEMAP_ENABLED, GOOGLESITEMAP_DEPTH, and so on.

Loading & activating extensions

Extensions are loaded and activated at startup by instantiating a single instance of the extension class. Therefore, all the extension initialization code must be performed in the class __init__ method.

To make an extension available, add it to the EXTENSIONS setting in your Scrapy settings. In EXTENSIONS, each extension is represented by a string: the full Python path to the extension’s class name. For example:

EXTENSIONS = {
    'scrapy.extensions.corestats.CoreStats': 500,
    'scrapy.extensions.telnet.TelnetConsole': 500,
}

As you can see, the EXTENSIONS setting is a dict where the keys are the extension paths, and their values are the orders, which define the extension loading order. The EXTENSIONS setting is merged with the EXTENSIONS_BASE setting defined in Scrapy (and not meant to be overridden) and then sorted by order to get the final sorted list of enabled extensions.

As extensions typically do not depend on each other, their loading order is irrelevant in most cases. This is why the EXTENSIONS_BASE setting defines all extensions with the same order (0). However, this feature can be exploited if you need to add an extension which depends on other extensions already loaded.

Available, enabled and disabled extensions

Not all available extensions will be enabled. Some of them usually depend on a particular setting. For example, the HTTP Cache extension is available by default but disabled unless the HTTPCACHE_ENABLED setting is set.

Disabling an extension

In order to disable an extension that comes enabled by default (i.e. those included in the EXTENSIONS_BASE setting) you must set its order to None. For example:

EXTENSIONS = {
    'scrapy.extensions.corestats.CoreStats': None,
}

Writing your own extension

Each extension is a Python class. The main entry point for a Scrapy extension (this also includes middlewares and pipelines) is the from_crawler class method which receives a Crawler instance. Through the Crawler object you can access settings, signals, stats, and also control the crawling behaviour.

Typically, extensions connect to signals and perform tasks triggered by them.

Finally, if the from_crawler method raises the NotConfigured exception, the extension will be disabled. Otherwise, the extension will be enabled.

Sample extension

Here we will implement a simple extension to illustrate the concepts described in the previous section. This extension will log a message every time:

• a spider is opened

• a spider is closed

• a specific number of items are scraped

The extension will be enabled through the MYEXT_ENABLED setting and the number of items will be specified through the MYEXT_ITEMCOUNT setting.

Here is the code of such extension:

import logging
from scrapy import signals
from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
class SpiderOpenCloseLogging:
    def __init__(self, item_count):
        self.item_count = item_count
        self.items_scraped = 0
    @classmethod
    def from_crawler(cls, crawler):
        # first check if the extension should be enabled and raise
        # NotConfigured otherwise
        if not crawler.settings.getbool('MYEXT_ENABLED'):
            raise NotConfigured
        # get the number of items from settings
        item_count = crawler.settings.getint('MYEXT_ITEMCOUNT', 1000)
        # instantiate the extension object
        ext = cls(item_count)
        # connect the extension object to signals
        crawler.signals.connect(ext.spider_opened, signal=signals.spider_opened)
        crawler.signals.connect(ext.spider_closed, signal=signals.spider_closed)
        crawler.signals.connect(ext.item_scraped, signal=signals.item_scraped)
        # return the extension object
        return ext
    def spider_opened(self, spider):
        logger.info("opened spider %s", spider.name)
    def spider_closed(self, spider):
        logger.info("closed spider %s", spider.name)
    def item_scraped(self, item, spider):
        self.items_scraped += 1
        if self.items_scraped % self.item_count == 0:
            logger.info("scraped %d items", self.items_scraped)

Built-in extensions reference

General purpose extensions

Log Stats extension

class scrapy.extensions.logstats.``LogStats[source]

Log basic stats like crawled pages and scraped items.

Core Stats extension

class scrapy.extensions.corestats.``CoreStats[source]

Enable the collection of core statistics, provided the stats collection is enabled (see Stats Collection).

Telnet console extension

class scrapy.extensions.telnet.``TelnetConsole[source]

Provides a telnet console for getting into a Python interpreter inside the currently running Scrapy process, which can be very useful for debugging.

The telnet console must be enabled by the TELNETCONSOLE_ENABLED setting, and the server will listen in the port specified in TELNETCONSOLE_PORT.

Memory usage extension

class scrapy.extensions.memusage.``MemoryUsage[source]

Note

This extension does not work in Windows.

Monitors the memory used by the Scrapy process that runs the spider and:

1. sends a notification e-mail when it exceeds a certain value

2. closes the spider when it exceeds a certain value

The notification e-mails can be triggered when a certain warning value is reached (MEMUSAGE_WARNING_MB) and when the maximum value is reached (MEMUSAGE_LIMIT_MB) which will also cause the spider to be closed and the Scrapy process to be terminated.

This extension is enabled by the MEMUSAGE_ENABLED setting and can be configured with the following settings:

• MEMUSAGE_LIMIT_MB

• MEMUSAGE_WARNING_MB

• MEMUSAGE_NOTIFY_MAIL

• MEMUSAGE_CHECK_INTERVAL_SECONDS

Memory debugger extension

class scrapy.extensions.memdebug.``MemoryDebugger[source]

An extension for debugging memory usage. It collects information about:

• objects uncollected by the Python garbage collector

• objects left alive that shouldn’t. For more info, see Debugging memory leaks with trackref

To enable this extension, turn on the MEMDEBUG_ENABLED setting. The info will be stored in the stats.

Close spider extension

class scrapy.extensions.closespider.``CloseSpider[source]

Closes a spider automatically when some conditions are met, using a specific closing reason for each condition.

The conditions for closing a spider can be configured through the following settings:

• CLOSESPIDER_TIMEOUT

• CLOSESPIDER_ITEMCOUNT

• CLOSESPIDER_PAGECOUNT

• CLOSESPIDER_ERRORCOUNT

CLOSESPIDER_TIMEOUT

Default: 0

An integer which specifies a number of seconds. If the spider remains open for more than that number of second, it will be automatically closed with the reason closespider_timeout. If zero (or non set), spiders won’t be closed by timeout.

CLOSESPIDER_ITEMCOUNT

Default: 0

An integer which specifies a number of items. If the spider scrapes more than that amount and those items are passed by the item pipeline, the spider will be closed with the reason closespider_itemcount. Requests which are currently in the downloader queue (up to CONCURRENT_REQUESTS requests) are still processed. If zero (or non set), spiders won’t be closed by number of passed items.

CLOSESPIDER_PAGECOUNT

New in version 0.11.

Default: 0

An integer which specifies the maximum number of responses to crawl. If the spider crawls more than that, the spider will be closed with the reason closespider_pagecount. If zero (or non set), spiders won’t be closed by number of crawled responses.

CLOSESPIDER_ERRORCOUNT

New in version 0.11.

Default: 0

An integer which specifies the maximum number of errors to receive before closing the spider. If the spider generates more than that number of errors, it will be closed with the reason closespider_errorcount. If zero (or non set), spiders won’t be closed by number of errors.

StatsMailer extension

class scrapy.extensions.statsmailer.``StatsMailer[source]

This simple extension can be used to send a notification e-mail every time a domain has finished scraping, including the Scrapy stats collected. The email will be sent to all recipients specified in the STATSMAILER_RCPTS setting.

Debugging extensions

Stack trace dump extension

class scrapy.extensions.debug.``StackTraceDump[source]

Dumps information about the running process when a SIGQUIT or SIGUSR2 signal is received. The information dumped is the following:

1. engine status (using scrapy.utils.engine.get_engine_status())

2. live references (see Debugging memory leaks with trackref)

3. stack trace of all threads

After the stack trace and engine status is dumped, the Scrapy process continues running normally.

This extension only works on POSIX-compliant platforms (i.e. not Windows), because the SIGQUIT and SIGUSR2 signals are not available on Windows.

There are at least two ways to send Scrapy the SIGQUIT signal:

1. By pressing Ctrl-while a Scrapy process is running (Linux only?)

2. By running this command (assuming <pid> is the process id of the Scrapy process):

   kill -QUIT <pid>

Debugger extension

class scrapy.extensions.debug.``Debugger[source]

Invokes a Python debugger inside a running Scrapy process when a SIGUSR2 signal is received. After the debugger is exited, the Scrapy process continues running normally.

For more info see Debugging in Python.

This extension only works on POSIX-compliant platforms (i.e. not Windows).