Web Scraping with Java in 2024 - The Most Detailed Guide

Web Scraping Basic Tutorial

This guide focuses on web scraping with Java in 2024. It provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to extract data from websites using the Scrapeme site as an example. By utilizing Java and the jsoup library, you will learn how to scrape static web page resources and retrieve specific information such as product names, images, prices, and details.

This guide equips you with the necessary skills to scrape data from similar websites and serves as a foundation for more advanced web scraping techniques.

Get ready to harness the power of Java for web scraping in this modern era!

Environment Requirements:

It is important to note that since we will be using Java for the demo project in this article, please make sure you have the following prerequisites in place before proceeding:

Recommended Environment:

• Java: Any version 8+ LTS
• Build tools: Any version of Gradle or Maven compatible with your local Java version
• IDE: Any of your preferences, such as Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, VS Code

Note: The installation process for the environment is omitted.

Case Environment:

JDK 21

# java -version
java version "21.0.2" 2024-01-16 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 21.0.2+13-LTS-58)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 21.0.2+13-LTS-58, mixed mode, sharing)

Build tool: Gradle

# gradle -version
Gradle 8.7

Build time: 2024-03-22 15:52:46 UTC
Revision: 650af14d7653aa949fce5e886e685efc9cf97c10

Kotlin: 1.9.22
Groovy: 3.0.17
Ant: Apache Ant(TM) version 1.10.13 compiled on January 4 2023
JVM: 21.0.2 (Oracle Corporation 21.0.2+13-LTS-58)
OS: Mac OS X 14.4.1 aarch64

IDE: IntelliJ IDEA

Project Creation:

Project Information

After creation, your project may look like this:

Dependencies are added, and for the time being, jsoup will suffice (jsoup: Java HTML Parser):

// gradle => build.gradle => dependencies
implementation 'org.jsoup:jsoup:1.17.2'

Let's Crawl ScrapeMe!

Now it's the right time to scrape the website! Here I will crawl the ScrapeMe, just as a reference. You can go through all the progress and then finish your project.

Target Site Analysis:

First, let's take a look at the data we want to scrape from the Scrapeme site. Open the site in a browser and view the source code to analyze the target elements. Then, retrieve the desired elements through code.

ScrapeMe Homepage Product List:

ScrapeMe Product Details: