Chapter 8. IMAGE-CAPTURING WEBBOTS

In this chapter, I'll describe a webbot that identifies and downloads all of the images on a web page. This webbot also stores images in a directory structure similar to the directory structure on the target website. This project will show how a seemingly simple webbot can be made more complex by addressing these common problems:

  • Finding the page base, or the address that defines the address from which all relative addresses are referenced

  • Dealing with changes to the page base, caused by page redirection

  • Converting relative addresses into fully resolved URLs

  • Replicating complex directory structures

  • Properly downloading image files with binary formats

In Chapter 18, you'll expand on these concepts to develop a spider ...

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