📅 2023-03-08 — Session: Developed robust web scraping functions for data extraction
🕒 19:30–20:10
🏷️ Labels: Web Scraping, Python, Pandas, Beautifulsoup, Data Extraction
📂 Project: Dev
⭐ Priority: MEDIUM
Session Goal
The primary aim was to develop and refine Python functions for web scraping various types of data and handling data manipulation within Pandas DataFrames.
Key Activities
- Implemented a Python function to scrape lab information from a specified URL, returning it as a Pandas DataFrame.
- Developed methods to fill missing values in DataFrames using Pandas.
- Utilized Beautiful Soup for scraping names and URLs from web pages.
- Created a function to scrape population data, returning demographic metrics in a DataFrame.
- Updated web scraping solutions to avoid deprecated methods and improve error handling.
- Addressed issues with missing anchor elements and hyperlink extraction in web scraping code.
- Integrated column data extraction with fallback options and demonstrated string splitting in DataFrame columns.
Achievements
- Successfully created and refined multiple web scraping functions using Python libraries such as Beautiful Soup and Pandas.
- Enhanced data extraction techniques and improved error handling in web scraping scripts.
- Developed robust methods for handling missing data and manipulating DataFrames.
Pending Tasks
- Further testing and validation of the web scraping functions on diverse datasets and web pages to ensure robustness and reliability.