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lib/hop.ex

defmodule Hop do
@moduledoc """
Hop is a tiny web crawling framework for Elixir.
Hop's goal is to be simple and extensible, while still providing
enough guardrails to get up and running quickly. Hop implements a simple,
depth-limited, breadth-first crawler - and keeps track of already visited
URLs for you. It also provides several utility functions for implementing
crawlers with best practices.
You can crawl a webpage with just a few lines of code with Hop:
url
|> Hop.new()
|> Hop.stream()
|> Enum.each(fn {url, _response, _state} ->
IO.puts("Visited: \#{url}")
end)
By default, Hop will perform a single-host, breadth-first crawl of all of the
pages on the website. The `stream/2` execution function will return a stream of
`{url, response, state}` tuples for each successfully visited page in the crawl.
This is designed to make it easy to perform caching, extract items from a page,
or do whatever other work deemed necessary.
The defaults are designed to get you up and running quickly; however, the power comes
in with Hop's simple extensibility. Hop provides extensibility by allowing you to
customize your crawler's behavior at 3 different steps:
1. Prefetch
2. Fetch
3. Next
### Prefetch
The prefetch stage is a pre-request stage typically used for request validation.
By default, during the prefetch stage, Hop will:
1. Check that the URL has a populated scheme and host
2. Check that the URL's scheme is acceptable. Default accepted schemes
are http and https. This prevents Hop from attempting to visit `tel:`,
`email:` and other links with non-HTTP schemes.
3. Check that the host is actually valid, using `:inet.gethostbyname`
4. Check that the host is an acceptable host to visit, e.g. not outside of
the host the crawl started on.
5. Perform a HEAD request to check that the content-length does not exceed
the maximum specified content length and to check that the content-type matches
one of the acceptable mime-types. This is useful for preventing Hop from spending
time downloading large files you don't care about.
Most users should stick to using Hop's default pre-request logic. If you want to
customize the behavior; however, you can pass your own `prefetch/3` function:
url
|> Hop.new()
|> Hop.prefetch(fn url, _state, _opts -> {:ok, url} end)
|> Hop.stream()
|> Enum.each(fn {url, _response, _state} ->
IO.puts("Visited: \#{url}")
end)
This simple example performs no validation, and forwards all URLs to the fetch stage.
Your custom `prefetch/3` function should be an arity-3 function which takes a URL, the
current Crawl state, and the current Hop's configuration options as input and returns
`{:ok, url}` or an error value. Any none `{:ok, url}` values will be ignored during fetch.
### Fetch
The fetch stage performs the actual requests during your crawl. By default, Hop
uses Req and performs a GET request without retries on each URL. In other words,
the default fetch function in Hop is:
def fetch(url, state, opts) do
req_options = opts[:req_options]
with {:ok, response} <- Req.get(url, req_options) do
{:ok, response, state}
end
end
Notice you can customize the `Req` request options by passing `:req_options` as
a part of your Hop's configuration.
This is simple and acceptable for many cases; however, certain applications require
more advanced setups and customization options. For example, you might want to configure
your fetch to proxy requests through Puppeteer to render javascript. You can do this easily:
def custom_fetch(url, state, _opts) do
# url to proxy that renders a page with puppeteer
proxy_url = "http://localhost:3000/render"
with {:ok, response} <- Req.post(url, json: %{url: url}) do
{:ok, response, state}
end
end
### Next
The next function dictates the next links to be crawled during execution.
It takes as input the current URL, the response from fetch, the current state,
and configuration options. By default, Hop returns all links on the current page
as next in the queue to be crawled. You can customize this behaviour by implementing
your own `next/4` function:
def custom_next(url, response, state, _opts) do
links =
url
|> Hop.fetch_links(response)
|> Enum.reject(&String.contains?(&1, "wp-uploads"))
{:ok, links, state}
end
This simple example ignores all URLs that contain `wp-uploads`. Hop provides a convenience
`fetch_links/2` to fetch all of the absolute URLs on a webpage. This just uses Floki under-the-hood.
"""
@default_max_depth 5
@default_max_content_length 1_000_000_000
@default_accepted_schemes ["http", "https"]
@default_accepted_mime_types [
"text/html",
"text/plain",
"application/xhtml+xml",
"application/xml",
"application/rss+xml",
"application/atom+xml"
]
@config_keys [
:max_depth,
:max_content_length,
:accepted_mime_types,
:accepted_schemes,
:crawl_query?,
:crawl_fragment?,
:req_options
]
alias __MODULE__, as: Hop
defstruct [:url, :prefetch, :fetch, :next, :config]
## State
defmodule State do
@moduledoc false
defstruct [
:last_crawled_url,
depth: 0,
visited: MapSet.new(),
hostnames: MapSet.new(),
state: %{}
]
end
## Builder
@doc """
Creates a new Hop starting at the given URL(s).
"""
@doc type: :builder
def new(url, opts \\ []) when is_binary(url) or is_list(url) do
opts = Keyword.validate!(opts, [:prefetch, :fetch, :next, :config])
opts
|> Enum.into(default_hop(url))
|> then(&struct(Hop, &1))
end
defp default_hop(url) do
%{
url: url,
prefetch: &default_prefetch/3,
fetch: &default_fetch/3,
next: &default_next/4,
config: Enum.map(@config_keys, fn key -> {key, default_config(key)} end)
}
end
defp default_prefetch(url, state, opts) do
{:ok, url}
|> validate_hostname(state, opts)
|> validate_scheme(state, opts)
|> validate_content(state, opts)
end
defp default_fetch(url, state, opts) do
req_options = opts[:req_options]
with {:ok, response} <- Req.get(url, req_options) do
{:ok, response, state}
end
end
defp default_next(url, %{body: body}, state, opts) do
links =
fetch_links(url, body,
crawl_query?: opts[:crawl_query?],
crawl_fragment?: opts[:crawl_fragment?]
)
{:ok, links, state}
end
@doc """
Sets this hop's fetch function.
The fetch function is what is used to actually make requests. By
default, Hop uses `&Req.get(&1, retry: false)`. If you want to
change the options passed to Req, you can do so here.
Your `fetch/1` function should accept a URL and return a tuple of
`{:ok, response}`.
Note that Hop is HTTP-Client agnostic. The `response` object is
simply forwarded to the `process` function. This means you can
swap for a new HTTP-client if necessary.
"""
@doc type: :builder
def fetch(%Hop{} = hop, fetch) when is_function(fetch, 3) do
%{hop | fetch: fetch}
end
@doc """
Sets this hop's prefetch function.
The prefetch function is essentially meant to be a pre-request
validation stage. This could serve the purpose of validating that
a given URL is valid, that the content is valid (e.g. via a HEAD
request), that the request matches a site's Robots.txt, etc.
Most clients will want to leave this as-is.
"""
@doc type: :builder
def prefetch(%Hop{} = hop, prefetch) when is_function(prefetch, 3) do
%{hop | prefetch: prefetch}
end
@doc """
Sets this hop's next function.
The next function dictates which links are meant to be crawled
next after the current page.
"""
@doc type: :builder
def next(%Hop{} = hop, next) when is_function(next, 4) do
%{hop | next: next}
end
## Configuration
@doc """
Puts the given configuration value for the given key
in the given hop.
"""
@doc type: :configuration
def put_config(%Hop{config: config} = hop, key, value) do
%{hop | config: Keyword.put(config, key, value)}
end
@doc """
Returns the current configuration value set for the given
key in the Hop.
"""
@doc type: :configuration
def config(%Hop{config: config}, key) do
config[key] || default_config(key)
end
@doc false
def default_config(key)
def default_config(:max_depth), do: @default_max_depth
def default_config(:max_content_length), do: @default_max_content_length
def default_config(:accepted_schemes), do: @default_accepted_schemes
def default_config(:accepted_mime_types), do: @default_accepted_mime_types
def default_config(:crawl_query?), do: true
def default_config(:crawl_fragment?), do: false
def default_config(:req_options), do: [connect_options: [timeout: 15_000], retry: false]
## Execution / Implementation
@doc """
Returns a stream that represents the execution of the given Hop.
This function will perform a limited-depth, breadth-first crawl from
the given start URL, and lazily return tuples of `{url, response, state}`
for each successfully visited page.
"""
@doc type: :execution
def stream(%Hop{url: url} = hop, state \\ %State{}) do
max_depth = config(hop, :max_depth)
urls = List.wrap(url)
hostnames = Enum.reduce(urls, state.hostnames, &MapSet.put(&2, hostname(&1)))
state = %{state | hostnames: hostnames}
start = Enum.map(urls, &{&1, 0})
Stream.unfold({start, state}, fn {urls, state} ->
{_visited, leftover} =
Enum.split_while(urls, fn {url, _} ->
MapSet.member?(state.visited, url)
end)
case leftover do
[] ->
nil
[{_, depth}] when depth > max_depth ->
nil
[{url, depth} | rest] ->
{response, next_links, state} = do_visit(hop, url, state)
new_links = rest ++ Enum.map(next_links, &{&1, depth + 1})
state = visit(state, url)
{{url, response, state}, {new_links, state}}
end
end)
|> Stream.reject(fn {_url, response, _} -> is_nil(response) end)
end
defp do_visit(%Hop{config: config} = hop, url, state) do
with {:ok, url} <- hop.prefetch.(url, state, config),
{:ok, response, state} <- hop.fetch.(url, state, config),
{:ok, links, state} <- hop.next.(url, response, state, config) do
{response, links, state}
else
_error ->
{nil, [], state}
end
end
## Validators
@doc """
Validates that the given URL has not already been visited.
The Crawl state contains a member `:visited` that is populated with
a set of URLs that have already been visited.
"""
@doc type: :validator
def validate_visited({:ok, url}, %{visited: visited} = _state, _opts) when is_binary(url) do
if MapSet.member?(visited, url) do
{:error, :already_visited}
else
{:ok, url}
end
end
def validate_visited(value, _state, _opts), do: value
@doc """
Validates that the given URL's scheme is valid for the crawl.
Validates that the scheme is populated, correct, and falls within
one of the configured accepted schemes according to the `:accepted_schemes`
configuration option.
"""
@doc type: :validator
def validate_scheme({:ok, url}, _state, opts) do
accepted_schemes = opts[:accepted_schemes]
%URI{scheme: scheme} = URI.parse(url)
if Enum.any?(accepted_schemes, &(&1 == scheme)) do
{:ok, url}
else
{:error, :invalid_scheme}
end
end
def validate_scheme(value, _state, _opts), do: value
@doc """
Validates that the given URL's hostname is valid for the crawl.
Validates that the hostname is populated, correct, and falls within
the set of hostnames allowed according to the crawl state.
"""
@doc type: :validator
def validate_hostname({:ok, url}, %{hostnames: hostnames} = _state, _opts) do
with %URI{host: host} <- URI.parse(url),
{:ok, _} <- :inet.gethostbyname(to_charlist(host)),
true <- MapSet.member?(hostnames, hostname(url)) do
{:ok, url}
else
_ ->
{:error, :invalid_host}
end
end
def validate_hostname(value, _state, _opts), do: value
@doc """
Validates that the given URL's content is valid for the crawl.
This function attempts to perform a HEAD request to the given URL to
check if the response content-type is one of the accepted mime types
and that the max content length is below the specified max content length
for the crawl.
If the given server does not support HEAD requests, it will simply
accept the URL as valid.
"""
@doc type: :validator
def validate_content({:ok, url}, _state, opts) do
accepted_mime_types = opts[:accepted_mime_types]
max_content_length = opts[:max_content_length]
case Req.head(url, retry: false) do
{:ok, %{status: status, headers: headers}} when status in 200..299 ->
content_type = Map.get(headers, "Content-Type") || Map.get(headers, "content-type")
content_length = Map.get(headers, "Content-Length") || Map.get(headers, "Content-Length")
cond do
not accept_mime_type?(content_type, accepted_mime_types) ->
{:error, :invalid_mime_type}
not accept_content_length?(content_length, max_content_length) ->
{:error, :request_too_large}
true ->
{:ok, url}
end
_error ->
{:ok, url}
end
end
def validate_content(value, _state, _opts), do: value
@doc """
Fetches all of the links on a given page.
This function takes the current URL and merges it with the given
anchor link to generate a fully-qualified URL.
## Options
* `:crawl_query?` - whether or not to treat query parameters
as unique links to crawl. Defaults to `true`
* `:crawl_fragment?` - whether or not to treat fragments as
unique links to crawl. Defaults to `false`
"""
@doc type: :html
def fetch_links(url, body, opts \\ []) do
opts = Keyword.validate!(opts, crawl_query?: true, crawl_fragment?: false)
crawl_query? = opts[:crawl_query?]
crawl_fragment? = opts[:crawl_fragment?]
case Floki.parse_document(body) do
{:ok, doc} ->
doc
|> Floki.find("a")
|> Floki.attribute("href")
|> Enum.map(fn href ->
merged = URI.merge(url, href)
merged = if crawl_query?, do: merged, else: %{merged | query: nil}
merged = if crawl_fragment?, do: merged, else: %{merged | fragment: nil}
URI.to_string(merged)
end)
|> Enum.uniq()
_error ->
[]
end
end
## State Manipulation
@doc """
Marks the given URL as visited.
This will update the set of visited URLs, and also mark this URL
as the last crawled URL in the state struct.
"""
@doc type: :state
def visit(%State{visited: visited} = state, url) do
%{state | visited: MapSet.put(visited, url), last_crawled_url: url}
end
## Private Helpers
defp accept_mime_type?(nil, _), do: true
defp accept_mime_type?(mime_type, accepted_mime_types) do
Enum.any?(mime_type, fn mime_type ->
[mime_type | _] = String.split(mime_type, ";")
Enum.any?(accepted_mime_types, &(&1 == mime_type))
end)
end
defp accept_content_length?(nil, _), do: true
defp accept_content_length?(content_length, max_content_length) do
content_length <= max_content_length
end
defp hostname(url) do
if host = URI.parse(url).host do
case String.split(host, ".") do
[_host, _tld] = split_host -> Enum.join(split_host, ".")
[_sub | rest] -> Enum.join(rest, ".")
end
end
end
end