Splash is a javascript rendering service with a HTTP API. It runs on top of twisted and QT webkit for rendering pages.

The (twisted) QT reactor is used to make the sever fully asynchronous allowing to take advantage of webkit concurrency via QT main loop.

See requirements.txt

To run the server:

python -m splash.server

Run python -m splash.server --help to see options available.

The following endpoints are supported:

Return the HTML of the javascript-rendered page.

Arguments:

url : string : required

The url to render (required)

baseurl : string : optional

The base url to render the page with.

If given, base HTML content will be feched from the URL given in the url argument, and render using this as the base url.

timeout : float : optional

A timeout (in seconds) for the render (defaults to 30)

wait : float : optional

Time (in seconds) to wait for updates after page is loaded (defaults to 0). Increase this value if you expect pages to contain setInterval/setTimeout javascript calls, because with wait=0 callbacks of setInterval/setTimeout won't be executed. Non-zero 'wait' is also required for PNG rendering when viewport=full (see later).

proxy : string : optional

Proxy profile name. See Proxy Profiles.

allowed_domains : string : optional

Comma-separated list of allowed domain names. If present, Splash won't load anything neither from domains not in this list nor from subdomains of domains not in this list.

viewport : string : optional

View width and height (in pixels) of the browser viewport to render the web page. Format is "<width>x<heigth>", e.g. 800x600. It also accepts 'full' as value; viewport=full means that the whole page (possibly very tall) will be rendered. Default value is 1024x768.

'viewport' parameter is more important for PNG rendering; it is supported for all rendering endpoints because javascript code execution can depend on viewport size.

Curl example:

curl http://localhost:8050/render.html?url=http://domain.com/page-with-javascript.html&timeout=10&wait=0.5

The result is always encoded to utf-8. Always decode HTML data returned by render.html endpoint from utf-8 even if there are tags like

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

in the result.

Return a image (in PNG format) of the javascript-rendered page.

Arguments:

Same as render.html plus the following ones:

width : integer : optional

Resize the rendered image to the given width (in pixels) keeping the aspect ratio.

height : integer : optional

Crop the renderd image to the given height (in pixels). Often used in conjunction with the width argument to generate fixed-size thumbnails.

Curl examples:

# render with timeout
curl http://localhost:8050/render.png?url=http://domain.com/page-with-javascript.html&timeout=10

# 320x240 thumbnail
curl http://localhost:8050/render.png?url=http://domain.com/page-with-javascript.html&width=320&height=240

Return a json-encoded dictionary with information about javascript-rendered webpage. It can include HTML, PNG and other information, based on GET arguments passed.

Arguments:

Same as render.png plus the following ones:

html : integer : optional

Whether to include HTML in output. Possible values are 1 (include) and 0 (exclude). Default is 0.

png : integer : optional

Whether to include PNG in output. Possible values are 1 (include) and 0 (exclude). Default is 0.

iframes : integer : optional

Whether to include information about child frames in output. Possible values are 1 (include) and 0 (exclude). Default is 0.

script : integer : optional

Whether to include the result of the executed javascript final statement in output. Possible values are 1 (include) and 0 (exclude). Default is 0.

console : integer : optional

Whether to include the executed javascript console messages in output. Possible values are 1 (include) and 0 (exclude). Default is 0.

By default, URL, requested URL, page title and frame geometry is returned:

{
    "url": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "geometry": [0, 0, 640, 480],
    "requestedUrl": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "title": "Crawlera"
}

Add 'html=1' to request to add HTML to the result:

{
    "url": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "geometry": [0, 0, 640, 480],
    "requestedUrl": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "html": "<!DOCTYPE html><!--[if IE 8]>....",
    "title": "Crawlera"
}

Add 'png=1' to request to add base64-encoded PNG screenshot to the result:

{
    "url": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "geometry": [0, 0, 640, 480],
    "requestedUrl": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "png": "iVBORw0KGgoAAAAN...",
    "title": "Crawlera"
}

Setting both 'html=1' and 'png=1' allows to get HTML and a screenshot at the same time - this guarantees that the screenshot matches the HTML.

By adding "iframes=1" information about iframes could be obtained:

{
    "geometry": [0, 0, 640, 480],
    "frameName": "",
    "title": "Scrapinghub | Autoscraping",
    "url": "http://scrapinghub.com/autoscraping.html",
    "childFrames": [
        {
            "title": "Tutorial: Scrapinghub's autoscraping tool - YouTube",
            "url": "",
            "geometry": [235, 502, 497, 310],
            "frameName": "<!--framePath //<!--frame0-->-->",
            "requestedUrl": "http://www.youtube.com/embed/lSJvVqDLOOs?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent",
            "childFrames": []
        }
    ],
    "requestedUrl": "http://scrapinghub.com/autoscraping.html"
}

Note that iframes can be nested.

Pass both 'html=1' and 'iframes=1' to get HTML for all iframes as well as for the main page:

{
   "geometry": [0, 0, 640, 480],
   "frameName": "",
   "html": "<!DOCTYPE html...",
   "title": "Scrapinghub | Autoscraping",
   "url": "http://scrapinghub.com/autoscraping.html",
   "childFrames": [
       {
           "title": "Tutorial: Scrapinghub's autoscraping tool - YouTube",
           "url": "",
           "html": "<!DOCTYPE html>...",
           "geometry": [235, 502, 497, 310],
           "frameName": "<!--framePath //<!--frame0-->-->",
           "requestedUrl": "http://www.youtube.com/embed/lSJvVqDLOOs?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent",
           "childFrames": []
       }
   ],
   "requestedUrl": "http://scrapinghub.com/autoscraping.html"

}

Unlike 'html=1', 'png=1' does not affect data in childFrames.

When executing JavaScript code add the parameter 'script=1' to the request to include the code output in the result:

{
    "url": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "geometry": [0, 0, 640, 480],
    "requestedUrl": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "title": "Crawlera",
    "script": "result of script..."
}

The JavaScript code supports the console.log() function to log messages. Add 'console=1' to the request to include the console output in the result:

{
    "url": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "geometry": [0, 0, 640, 480],
    "requestedUrl": "http://crawlera.com/",
    "title": "Crawlera",
    "script": "result of script...",
    "console": ["first log message", "second log message", ...]
}

Curl examples:

# full information
curl http://localhost:8050/render.json?url=http://domain.com/page-with-iframes.html&png=1&html=1&iframes=1

# HTML and meta information of page itself and all its iframes
curl http://localhost:8050/render.json?url=http://domain.com/page-with-iframes.html&html=1&iframes=1

# only meta information (like page/iframes titles and urls)
curl http://localhost:8050/render.json?url=http://domain.com/page-with-iframes.html&iframes=1

# render html and 320x240 thumbnail at once; do not return info about iframes
curl http://localhost:8050/render.json?url=http://domain.com/page-with-iframes.html&html=1&png=1&width=320&height=240

# Render page and execute simple Javascript function, display the js output
curl -X POST -H 'content-type: application/javascript' \
    -d 'function getAd(x){ return x; } getAd("abc");' \
    'http://localhost:8050/render.json?url=http://domain.com&script=1'

# Render page and execute simple Javascript function, display the js output and the console output
curl -X POST -H 'content-type: application/javascript' \
    -d 'function getAd(x){ return x; }; console.log("some log"); console.log("another log"); getAd("abc");' \
    'http://localhost:8050/render.json?url=http://domain.com&script=1&console=1'

Splash supports executing JavaScript code within the context of the page. The JavaScript code is executed after the page finished loading (including any delay defined by 'wait') but before the page is rendered. This allow to use the javascript code to modify the page being rendered.

To execute JavaScript code we use a POST request with the content-type set to 'application/javascript'. The body of the request should contain the code to be executed.

Curl example:

# Render page and modify its title dynamically
curl -X POST -H 'content-type: application/javascript' \
    -d 'document.title="My Title";' \
    'http://localhost:8050/render.html?url=http://domain.com'

To get the result of a javascript function executed within page context use render.json endpoint with script=1 parameter.

Splash supports "javascript profiles" that allows to preload javascript files. Javascript files defined in a profile are executed after the page is loaded and before any javascript code defined in the request.

The preloaded files can be used in the user's POST'ed code.

To enable javascript profiles support, run splash server with the --js-profiles-path=<path to a folder with js profiles> option:

python -m splash.server --js-profiles-path=/etc/splash/js-profiles

Then create a directory with the name of the profile and place inside it the javascript files to load (note they must be utf-8 encoded). The files are loaded in the order they appear in the filesystem. Directory example:

/etc/splash/js-profiles/
                    mywebsite/
                          lib1.js

To apply this javascript profile add the parameter js=mywebsite to the request:

curl -X POST -H 'content-type: application/javascript' \
    -d 'myfunc("Hello");' \
    'http://localhost:8050/render.html?js=mywebsite&url=http://domain.com'

Note that this example assumes that myfunc is a javascript function defined in lib1.js.

If Splash is started with --js-cross-domain-access option

python -m splash.server --js-cross-domain-access

then javascript code is allowed to access the content of iframes loaded from a security origin diferent to the original page (browsers usually disallow that). This feature is useful for scraping, e.g. to extract the html of a iframe page. An example of its usage:

curl -X POST -H 'content-type: application/javascript' -d 'function getContents(){ var f = document.getElementById("external"); return f.contentDocument.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].innerHTML; }; getContents();' 'http://localhost:8050/render.html?url=http://domain.com'

The javascript function 'getContents' will look for a iframe with the id 'external' and extract its html contents.

Note that allowing cross origin javascript calls is a potential security issue, since it is possible that secret information (i.e cookies) is exposed when this support is enabled; also, some websites don't load when cross-domain security is disabled, so this feature is OFF by default.

Splash supports "proxy profiles" that allows to set proxy handling rules per-request using proxy GET parameter.

To enable proxy profiles support, run splash server with --proxy-profiles-path=<path to a folder with proxy profiles> option:

python -m splash.server --proxy-profiles-path=/etc/splash/proxy-profiles

Then create an INI file with "proxy profile" config inside the specified folder, e.g. /etc/splash/proxy-profiles/mywebsite.ini. Example contents of this file:

[proxy]

; required
host=proxy.crawlera.com
port=8010

; optional, default is no auth
username=username
password=password

[rules]
; optional, default ".*"
whitelist=
    .*mywebsite\.com.*

; optional, default is no blacklist
blacklist=
    .*\.js.*
    .*\.css.*
    .*\.png

whitelist and blacklist are newline-separated lists of regexes. If URL matches one of whitelist patterns and matches none of blacklist patterns, proxy specified in [proxy] section is used; no proxy is used otherwise.

Then, to apply proxy rules according to this profile, add proxy=mywebsite parameter to request:

curl http://localhost:8050/render.html?url=http://mywebsite.com/page-with-javascript.html&proxy=mywebsite

If default.ini profile is present, it will be used when proxy GET argument is not specified. If you have default.ini profile but don't want to apply it pass none as proxy value.

Splash supports working as HTTP proxy. In this mode all the HTTP requests received will be proxied and the response will be rendered based in the following HTTP headers:

X-Splash-render : string : required

The render mode to use, valid modes are: html, png and json. These modes have the same behavior as the endpoints: render.html, render.png and render.json respectively.

X-Splash-js-source : string

Allow to execute javascript code same as POST js code to render.html

X-Splash-timeout : string

Same as 'timeout' argument for render.html

X-Splash-wait : string

Same as 'wait' argument for render.html

X-Splash-proxy : string

Same as 'proxy' argument for render.html

X-Splash-allowed-domains : string

Same as 'allowed_domains' argument for render.html

X-Splash-viewport : string

Same as 'viewport' argument for render.html

X-Splash-width : string

Same as 'width' argument for render.png

X-Splash-height : string

Same as 'height' argument for render.png

X-Splash-html : string

Same as 'html' argument for render.json

X-Splash-png : string

Same as 'png' argument for render.json

X-Splash-iframes : string

Same as 'iframes' argument for render.json

X-Splash-script : string

Same as 'script' argument for render.json

X-Splash-console : string

Same as 'console' argument for render.json

Splash proxy mode is enabled by default. To disable it run splash server with --disable-proxy option:

python -m splash.server --disable-proxy

Curl examples:

# Display json stats
curl -x localhost:8051 -H 'X-Splash-render: json' \
    http://www.domain.com

# Get the html page and screenshot
curl -x localhost:8051 \
    -H "X-Splash-render: json" \
    -H "X-Splash-html: 1" \
    -H "X-Splash-png: 1" \
    http://www.mywebsite.com

# Execute JS and return output
curl -x localhost:8051 \
    -H 'X-Splash-render: json' \
    -H 'X-Splash-script: 1' \
    -H 'X-Splash-js-source: function test(x){ return x; } test("abc");' \
    http://www.domain.com

# Send POST request to site and save screenshot of results
curl -X POST -d '{"key":"val"}' -x localhost:8051 -o screenshot.png \
    -H 'X-Splash-render: png' \
    http://www.domain.com

Run with:

nosetests

There are some stress tests that spawn its own splash server and a mock server to run tests against.

To run the stress tests:

python -m splash.tests.stress

Typical output:

$ python -m splash.tests.stress
Total requests: 1000
Concurrency   : 50
Log file      : /tmp/splash-stress-48H91h.log
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Received/Expected (per status code or error):
  200: 500/500
  504: 200/200
  502: 300/300