[FIXED] Get JavaScript array from page to Python using Selenium

Issue

I have a page which has a script and it contains one array which I need (myHashDay).

<script type="text/javascript">

    function toggleCheckBoxes(obj) {
        var theForm = document.getElementById("thePage:SiteTemplate:theForm");
        for (var i=0; i<theForm.elements.length; i++) {
            if (theForm.elements[i].type == "checkbox" &&
                theForm.elements[i].name != obj.name) {

                theForm.elements[i].checked = false;
            }
        }
    }

    // ATLAS-1089: back & continue buttons showing twice for
    //             Reserved Group/Emergency Appointments
    function checkIfButtonsShowTwice() {

        // From first form
        var continueBtn = document.getElementById("thePage:SiteTemplate:theForm:continueBtn");
        var backBtn = document.getElementById("thePage:SiteTemplate:theForm:backBtn");

        // From second form
        var continueBtnToHide = document.getElementById("thePage:SiteTemplate:theForm2:continueBtn");
        var backBtnToHide = document.getElementById("thePage:SiteTemplate:theForm2:form2BackBtn");

        // The controller logic for rendering the buttons
        // is fragile so... front end solutions for the win
        if(continueBtn != null) {
            if (continueBtnToHide != null) {
                continueBtnToHide.style.display = "none";
            }
        }
    }

    var myDayHash = new Array();
    myDayHash['14-9-2023'] = true;
    myDayHash['4-12-2023'] = true;
    myDayHash['31-1-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['1-2-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['27-2-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['28-2-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['4-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['5-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['6-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['7-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['11-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['12-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['13-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['14-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['18-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['19-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['20-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['21-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['25-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['26-3-2024'] = true;
    myDayHash['27-3-2024'] = true;

    var ofcAptDateStr = null;ofcAptDateStr = '';

    var splitDate = 'Thu Sep 14 00:00:00 GMT 2023'.split(" ");
    var minApptDate = splitDate[1] + ' ' + splitDate[2] + ' ' + splitDate[5];
}
</script>

So I need to get myDayHash array from it.

What I am trying to do:

driver.get('\test.html')
element = driver.execute_script("myDayHash")

But it doesn’t return anything.

I tried element = driver.execute_script("return myDayHash") as well. But it returns none.

But if I use the console in the Chrome browser and type "myDayHash" it prints my whole array.

How can I get this array to Python?

Solution

Here is a solution using Beautiful Soup and regular expressions.

Fetch the data

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
import re

r = requests.get('http://website.com/test.html')
soup = BeautifulSoup(r.content)
array = soup.select('script')

Get the text from each script tag

text = ' '.join([elem.text for elem in array])

Apply regex to get myDayHash

The below regex gives you the myDayHash datastructure values in the form of list of tuples.

myDayHash = re.findall(r"myDayHash\[\'(.*?)\'\] = (.*?);", text)

Generating output:

print(dict(myDayHash))

Output

This gives us the expected output. Now based on your requirement, you can store the key:value pair into any data structure.

{
    '14-9-2023': 'true',
    '4-12-2023': 'true',
    '31-1-2024': 'true',
    '1-2-2024': 'true',
    '27-2-2024': 'true',
    '28-2-2024': 'true',
    '4-3-2024': 'true',
    '5-3-2024': 'true',
    '6-3-2024': 'true',
    '7-3-2024': 'true',
    '11-3-2024': 'true',
    '12-3-2024': 'true',
    '13-3-2024': 'true',
    '14-3-2024': 'true',
    '18-3-2024': 'true',
    '19-3-2024': 'true',
    '20-3-2024': 'true',
    '21-3-2024': 'true',
    '25-3-2024': 'true',
    '26-3-2024': 'true',
    '27-3-2024': 'true'
}

TLDR

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
import re

r = requests.get('http://website.com/test.html')
soup = BeautifulSoup(r.content)
array = soup.select('script')
text = ' '.join([elem.text for elem in array])
myDayHash = re.findall(r"myDayHash\[\'(.*?)\'\] = (.*?);", text)
print(dict(myDayHash))

Answered By - Himanshuman