CSS Selectors for Scraping

CSS selectors let you describe elements exactly like front-end developers do.

They are powerful and concise.

Common selectors

• div → all div tags
• .price → class="price"
• #main → id="main"
• div span → span inside div
• div > span → direct child

Example HTML

<div class="card">
  <h3 class="name">Phone</h3>
  <span class="price">$500</span>
</div>

Using select() in BeautifulSoup

card = soup.select_one("div.card")
name = card.select_one("h3.name").text
price = card.select_one("span.price").text

Selector flow

flowchart LR
  A[HTML Page] --> B[CSS Selector]
  B --> C[Matched Elements]

Why selectors matter

They:

• reduce code
• make scraping readable
• avoid deep nesting logic

Remember

• Learn selectors once, use everywhere
• Prefer select/select_one for clarity