node-phantom-simple
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Simple and reliable bridge between Node.js and PhantomJS / SlimerJS
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node-phantom-simple
===================
[](https://travis-ci.org/baudehlo/node-phantom-simple)
[](https://www.npmjs.org/package/node-phantom-simple)
> A bridge between [PhantomJS](http://phantomjs.org/) / [SlimerJS](https://slimerjs.org/)
and [Node.js](http://nodejs.org/).
This module is API-compatible with
[node-phantom](https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-phantom) but doesn't rely on
`WebSockets` / `socket.io`. In essence the communication between Node and
Phantom / Slimer has been simplified significantly. It has the following advantages
over `node-phantom`:
- Fewer dependencies/layers.
- Doesn't use the unreliable and huge socket.io.
- Works under [`cluster`](http://nodejs.org/api/cluster.html) (node-phantom
does not, due to [how it works](https://nodejs.org/api/cluster.html#cluster_how_it_works))
`server.listen(0)` works in cluster.
- Supports SlimerJS.
Migrating 1.x -> 2.x
--------------------
Your software should work without changes, but can show deprecation warning
about outdated signatures. You need to update:
- `options.phantomPath` -> `options.path`
- in `.create()` `.evaluate()` & `.waitForSelector()` -> move `callback` to last
position of arguments list.
That's all!
Installing
----------
```bash
npm install node-phantom-simple
# Also need phantomjs OR slimerjs:
npm install phantomjs
# OR
npm install slimerjs
```
__Note__. SlimerJS is not headless and requires a windowing environment.
Under Linux/FreeBSD/OSX [xvfb can be used to run headlessly.](https://docs.slimerjs.org/current/installation.html#having-a-headless-slimerjs). For example, if you wish
to run SlimerJS on Travis-CI, add those lines to your `.travis.yml` config:
```yaml
before_script:
- export DISPLAY=:99.0
- "sh -e /etc/init.d/xvfb start"
```
Usage
-----
You can use it exactly like node-phantom, and the entire API of PhantomJS
should work, with the exception that every method call takes a callback (always
as the last parameter), instead of returning values.
For example, this is an adaptation of a
[web scraping example](http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/web-scraping-with-node-js/):
```js
var driver = require('node-phantom-simple');
driver.create({ path: require('phantomjs').path }, function (err, browser) {
return browser.createPage(function (err, page) {
return page.open("http://tilomitra.com/repository/screenscrape/ajax.html", function (err,status) {
console.log("opened site? ", status);
page.includeJs('http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js', function (err) {
// jQuery Loaded.
// Wait for a bit for AJAX content to load on the page. Here, we are waiting 5 seconds.
setTimeout(function () {
return page.evaluate(function () {
//Get what you want from the page using jQuery. A good way is to populate an object with all the jQuery commands that you need and then return the object.
var h2Arr = [],
pArr = [];
$('h2').each(function () { h2Arr.push($(this).html()); });
$('p').each(function () { pArr.push($(this).html()); });
return {
h2: h2Arr,
p: pArr
};
}, function (err,result) {
console.log(result);
browser.exit();
});
}, 5000);
});
});
});
});
```
### .create(options, callback)
__options__ (not mandatory):
- __path__ (String) - path to phantomjs/slimerjs, if not set - will search in $PATH
- __parameters__ (Array) - CLI params for executed engine, [ { nave: value } ].
- __ignoreErrorPattern__ (RegExp) - a regular expression that can be used to
silence spurious warnings in console, generated by Qt and PhantomJS.
On Mavericks, you can use `/CoreText/` to suppress some common annoying
font-related warnings.
For example
```js
driver.create({ parameters: { 'ignore-ssl-errors': 'yes' } }, callback)
```
will start phantom as:
```bash
phantomjs --ignore-ssl-errors=yes
```
You can rely on globally installed engines, but we recommend to pass path explicit:
```js
driver.create({ path: require('phantomjs').path }, callback)
// or for slimer
driver.create({ path: require('slimerjs').path }, callback)
```
You can also have a look at [the test directory](tests/) to see some examples
of using the API, however the de-facto reference is the
[PhantomJS documentation](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/wiki/API-Reference).
Just mentally substitute all return values for callbacks.
WebPage Callbacks
-----------------
All of the `WebPage` callbacks have been implemented including `onCallback`,
and are set the same way as with the core phantomjs library:
```js
page.onResourceReceived = function(response) {
console.log('Response (#' + response.id + ', stage "' + response.stage + '"): ' + JSON.stringify(response));
};
```
This includes the `onPageCreated` callback which receives a new `page` object.
Properties
----------
Properties on the [WebPage](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/wiki/API-Reference-WebPage)
and [Phantom](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/wiki/API-Reference-phantom)
objects are accessed via the `get()`/`set()` method calls:
```js
page.get('content', function (err, html) {
console.log("Page HTML is: " + html);
});
page.set('zoomfactor', 0.25, function () {
page.render('capture.png');
});
// You can get/set nested values easy!
page.set('settings.userAgent', 'PhAnToSlImEr', callback);
```
Known issues
------------
Engines are buggy. Here are some cases you should know.
- `.evaluate` can return corrupted result:
- SlimerJS: undefined -> null.
- PhantomJS:
- undefined -> null
- null -> '' (empty string)
- [ 1, undefined, 2 ] -> null
- `page.onConfirm()` handler can not return value due async driver nature.
Use `.setFn()` instead: `page.setFn('onConfirm', function () { return true; })`.
License
-------
[MIT](https://github.com/baudehlo/node-phantom-simple/blob/master/LICENSE)
Other
-----
Made by Matt Sergeant for Hubdoc Inc.