Scrape event data from websites

This Python tool scrapes event data from websites (currently only Facebook) and returns the event information as JSON.

Using the below setup steps, the service will be installed as an Apache Vhost that is accessible at http://127.0.0.1:5050

Usage when running as Flask WSGI app

http://127.0.0.1:5050/api/scrape?url=https://www.facebook.com/events/12345

Requirements

• Python 3.6 or higher
• Apache2 web server
• Tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Initial setup

./install_requirements.bash
./init_venv.bash
./install_apache2_vhost.bash

Command line usage

source venv/bin/activate
python -m eventscraper <url>

If the exit code is 0, the scraped data is saved to result.json.

For debugging purposes, the response for the URL request is saved to response.html.

Run as Docker container

Create container:

sudo docker build -t eventscraper:1.3 .

Run container:

docker run -p 9080:80 eventscraper:1.3

Save container:

docker save eventscraper:1.3 | gzip > eventscraper-1.3.tar.gz