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python requests javascript

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python requests JavaScript

When using Python to scrape data from a website or interact with a web API, sometimes it's necessary to execute JavaScript on the page. This can be done using the Python Requests library in combination with a headless browser such as Selenium or a JavaScript engine such as PyV8.

Using Selenium

Selenium is a popular choice for automating web browsers in Python. It allows you to control a browser instance and execute JavaScript just as if you were interacting with the page manually.

First, you'll need to install the Selenium library:


pip install selenium

Then, you'll need to download a driver executable for the browser you wish to use. For example, if you want to use Google Chrome:


from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome('/path/to/chromedriver')
driver.get('https://example.com')

# execute some JavaScript
driver.execute_script('console.log("hello world");')

Using PyV8

If you don't want to use a full browser instance and would prefer to just execute the JavaScript code, PyV8 is a good option. It's a Python wrapper around the V8 JavaScript engine.

You'll need to install the PyV8 library:


pip install PyV8

Then, you can execute JavaScript code like this:


import PyV8

with PyV8.JSLocker():
    ctxt = PyV8.JSContext()
    ctxt.enter()
    ctxt.eval('console.log("hello world");')

Note that PyV8 is not compatible with Python 3, so you'll need to use Python 2.

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