Are there any limitations to GoQuery's scraping capabilities?

GoQuery is a library for Go (Golang) that provides a set of features to scrape and manipulate HTML documents similarly to jQuery. While it's a powerful tool for web scraping, it has several limitations that developers should be aware of:

1. JavaScript Execution: GoQuery does not execute JavaScript on the pages it fetches. This means that any content or changes to the DOM that rely on JavaScript will not be present when using GoQuery to scrape a website. For scraping pages that require JavaScript execution, you would need to use a headless browser like Chromedp, Rod, or integrate with a tool like Selenium.

2. Complex Dynamic Sites: Because GoQuery cannot execute JavaScript, scraping single-page applications (SPAs) or sites that heavily rely on AJAX to load content dynamically can be a challenge.

3. Browser Features: GoQuery does not have the capabilities of a full-fledged browser; therefore, it cannot handle cookies, sessions, or perform actions like a real user. If you need those features, you would again need to use a headless browser or supplement GoQuery with additional Go packages that handle HTTP requests more comprehensively.

4. Rate Limiting & IP Blocking: GoQuery itself does not have built-in functionality to manage request rate limiting or handle IP blocking. When scraping websites, it's essential to respect the site's robots.txt and terms of service. If you scrape too aggressively, the website may block your IP address. You need to manually implement polite scraping practices when using GoQuery.

5. Form Handling: While GoQuery can parse and help you find form fields, it does not provide functionalities to fill out and submit forms. You would need to use the net/http package or other HTTP client libraries in Go to manage form submissions.

6. Error Handling: When scraping web pages, you might encounter various types of errors such as network issues, server errors, or unexpected content changes. GoQuery is focused on parsing and manipulating HTML, so it doesn't provide robust error handling for these scenarios. You'll need to write additional Go code to handle such errors gracefully.

7. Data Extraction Limitations: GoQuery is excellent for selecting and extracting data from HTML, but it does not provide features for data cleaning, transformation, or storage. You'll need to use other libraries or write custom code to handle those aspects of web scraping.

8. Limited CSS Selector Support: While GoQuery supports many CSS selectors, it may not support every selector available in browsers or other scraping tools. It's important to test your selectors and ensure they work as intended with GoQuery.

9. Concurrency Management: GoQuery itself is not concurrent; you need to write Go code to manage concurrency when scraping multiple pages simultaneously. This involves using goroutines and channels to perform parallel requests efficiently and safely.

10. Mobile Emulation: Some websites serve different content based on user-agent strings or device types. GoQuery doesn't emulate different devices, so you would have to set appropriate headers manually if you need to scrape mobile-specific content.

Here's a simple example of using GoQuery to scrape a website:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "net/http"

    "github.com/PuerkitoBio/goquery"
)

func main() {
    // Make HTTP GET request
    response, err := http.Get("https://example.com")
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    defer response.Body.Close()

    // Create a GoQuery document from the HTTP response
    document, err := goquery.NewDocumentFromReader(response.Body)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal("Error loading HTTP response body. ", err)
    }

    // Find and print all links
    document.Find("a").Each(func(index int, element *goquery.Selection) {
        href, exists := element.Attr("href")
        if exists {
            fmt.Println(href)
        }
    })
}

Remember to always check and follow the robots.txt file of the website and ensure that your web scraping activities comply with legal and ethical standards.