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Matt Sidesinger
Matt Sidesinger

Reputation: 2154

Server side browser that can execute JavaScript

Is there any programming libraries available that will parse an HTML document, execute JavaScript and then allow me to navigate the DOM?  This needs to be performed server side, not client side. Any language will do, but Java, PHP, or Ruby are preferred.

Upvotes: 8

Views: 4644

Answers (9)

Gareth Thomas
Gareth Thomas

Reputation: 430

node.js ?

Node can run any javascript file in its console. I would try node first & see if it can do what you want as it likely has the largest user base & documentation.

Upvotes: 0

We Are All Monica
We Are All Monica

Reputation: 13354

There are now several projects that do a really good job of this:

  • PhantomJS is a headless version of WebKit, and there are some helpful wrappers such as CasperJS.

  • Zombie.js which is a wrapper over jsdom written in Javascript (Node.js).

You need to write JavaScript code to interact with both of these projects. I like Zombie.js better so far, since it is easier to set up, and you can use any Node.js/npm modules in your code.

Upvotes: 0

Ali Gangji
Ali Gangji

Reputation: 1501

PhantomJS does this and can be used with any server side language. See some integration modules below for NodeJS and PHP

NodeJS

https://npmjs.org/package/node-phantom

https://github.com/sgentle/phantomjs-node

PHP

https://github.com/diggin/php-PhantomjsRunner

Upvotes: 1

Kohsuke Kawaguchi
Kohsuke Kawaguchi

Reputation: 3617

For Java, be sure to check out HtmlUnit and HttpUnit.

Upvotes: 1

NilColor
NilColor

Reputation: 3542

Start from this post and follow a links. Or just search for Rhino.

Upvotes: 0

Luca Matteis
Luca Matteis

Reputation: 29267

Have you tried Bringing the Browser to the Server?

Upvotes: 6

Stefan De Boey
Stefan De Boey

Reputation: 2394

in java: http://lobobrowser.org/cobra/java-html-parser.jsp
this is a a Javascript-aware, CSS-aware HTML parser
the most important feature in relation to your question: It is Javascript-aware. DOM modifications that occur during parsing will be reflected in the resulting DOM.

Upvotes: 2

Pepijn
Pepijn

Reputation: 4253

Java has support for javascript with Rhino, also look at this page for server side javascript solutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server-side_JavaScript

Upvotes: 2

John Conde
John Conde

Reputation: 219924

PHP has DOMDocument for navigating the DOM. I haven't heard of anything for executing JavaScript.

Upvotes: 0

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