My objective is that for website https://data.eastmoney.com/executive/000001.html, when you scroll down you will find a big table

and I want to turn it into a DataFrame in Python. Is BeautifulSoup enough to do so? Or do I have to use Selenium?

Some people on Stack Overflow said that BeautifulSoup cannot crawl table data from the Internet, so I tried Selenium and here is the code:

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get('https://data.eastmoney.com/executive/000001.html')
table_element = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//table")
item_element = table_element.find_element_by_xpath("//tr[2]/td[3]")
item_text = item_element.text
df = pd.DataFrame([item_text], columns=["Item"])
print(df)
driver.quit()

and here is the outcome:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "selenium/webdriver/common/service.py", line 76, in start
    stdin=PIPE)
  File "subprocess.py", line 709, in __init__
    restore_signals, start_new_session)
  File "subprocess.py", line 1344, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'chromedriver': 'chromedriver'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/entry.py", line 379, in _run
    engine.start()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/engine.py", line 231, in start
    self._dispatcher.start()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/dispatcher.py", line 280, in start
    self._run_loop()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/dispatcher.py", line 240, in _run_loop
    self._loop.run()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/loop/loop.py", line 107, in run
    self._handle_queue()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/loop/loop.py", line 153, in _handle_queue
    message.callback(**message.callback_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_subscriber.py", line 228, in broadcast
    consumer.send(market_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 59, in    consumer_gen
    msg_callback()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 52, in   msg_callback
    callback(market_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 122, in  wrapper
    result = callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/strategy.py", line 474, in _wrapper
    self._context.current_dt
  File "/tmp/strategy/user_code.py", line 85, in handle_data
    driver = webdriver.Chrome()
  File "selenium/webdriver/chrome/webdriver.py", line 73, in __init__
    self.service.start()
  File "selenium/webdriver/common/service.py", line 83, in start
    os.path.basename(self.path), self.start_error_message)
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be in     PATH. Please see https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/home

Basically it says “Chromedriver.exe needs to be in PATH”. The problem is I am using an online backtest platform called JoinQuant (www.joinquant.com) and all the Python files such as File “selenium/webdriver/common/service.py” are not local – they are not on my disk drive. So that’s something complicated with Selenium – Do I have to use Selenium to crawl data like this from the Internet and turn it into DataFrame in Python? Or can I use something else like BeautifulSoup? For BeautifulSoup, as least it does not have the “drive needs to be in PATH” problem.

For BeautifulSoup, here’s what I tried:

# Web Crawler
# Sent HTTP Request to get Internet content
url = 'https://data.eastmoney.com/executive/000001.html'
response = requests.get(url)
html_content = response.text

# Check if the request is successful
if response.status_code == 200:
    # Use BeautifulSoup to Analyze Internet information and get the table
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html_content, 'html.parser')
    table = soup.find_all('table')
    # Acquire the rows and columns of the table
    rows = table.find_all('tr')
    data = []
    for row in rows:
        cols = row.find_all('td')
        row_data = []
        for col in cols:
            row_data.append(col.text.strip())
        data.append(row_data)
else:
    print("Failed to Retrieve the Webpage.")

# Set up DataFrame
dataframe = pd.DataFrame(data)
# Print DataFrame
print(dataframe)

and here’s the output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/entry.py", line 379, in _run
    engine.start()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/engine.py", line 231, in start
    self._dispatcher.start()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/dispatcher.py", line 280, in start
    self._run_loop()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/dispatcher.py", line 240, in _run_loop
    self._loop.run()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/loop/loop.py", line 107, in run
    self._handle_queue()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/loop/loop.py", line 153, in _handle_queue
    message.callback(**message.callback_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_subscriber.py", line 228, in broadcast
    consumer.send(market_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 59, in   consumer_gen
    msg_callback()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 52, in  msg_callback
    callback(market_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 122, in  wrapper
    result = callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/strategy.py", line 474, in _wrapper
    self._context.current_dt
  File "/tmp/strategy/user_code.py", line 114, in handle_data
    rows = table.find_all('tr')
  File "bs4/element.py", line 1884, in __getattr__
    "ResultSet object has no attribute '%s'. You're probably treating a list of items like a   single item. Did you call find_all() when you meant to call find()?" % key
AttributeError: ResultSet object has no attribute 'find_all'. You're probably treating a list of   items like a single item. Did you call find_all() when you meant to call find()?

But if you change

table = soup.find_all('table')

into

table = soup.find('table')

Here’s the outcome:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/entry.py", line 379, in _run
    engine.start()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/engine.py", line 231, in start
    self._dispatcher.start()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/dispatcher.py", line 280, in start
    self._run_loop()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/dispatcher.py", line 240, in _run_loop
    self._loop.run()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/loop/loop.py", line 107, in run
    self._handle_queue()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/loop/loop.py", line 153, in _handle_queue
    message.callback(**message.callback_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_subscriber.py", line 228, in broadcast
    consumer.send(market_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 59, in   consumer_gen
    msg_callback()
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 52, in msg_callback
    callback(market_data)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/mds/market_data_consumer_manager.py", line 122, in wrapper
    result = callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/tmp/jqcore/jqboson/jqboson/core/strategy.py", line 474, in _wrapper
    self._context.current_dt
  File "/tmp/strategy/user_code.py", line 114, in handle_data
    rows = table.find_all('tr')
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'find_all'

So to sum all up, which one should I use? Selenium or BeautifulSoup? Or even something else? And how should I tackle this issue?