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

Using select() in BeautifulSoup ```python card = soup.select_one("div.card") name = card.select_one("h3.name").text price = card.select_one("span.price").text ```

Selector flow ```mermaid 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