Can I scrape images and files with IronWebScraper?

Yes, you can scrape images and files with IronWebScraper, which is a C# library designed to make web scraping simple and efficient. IronWebScraper supports downloading content such as HTML, images, files, and other media from the web.

To scrape images and files with IronWebScraper, you'll need to create a C# project, install the IronWebScraper NuGet package, and then write code to initiate a scraping process. Below is an example of how you might use IronWebScraper to scrape images:

using IronWebScraper;

class ImageScraper : WebScraper
{
    public override void Init()
    {
        // Start scraping the webpage
        this.Request("http://example.com", Parse);
    }

    public override void Parse(Response response)
    {
        // Loop through each image found on the page
        foreach (var imgSrc in response.Css("img"))
        {
            // Get the image source attribute value
            string imageUrl = imgSrc.Attributes["src"];

            // Download the image and save it to the specified folder
            // You need to ensure that the directory exists beforehand
            Download(imageUrl, SaveImageToDisk);
        }
    }

    // Callback method to save the downloaded image to disk
    public void SaveImageToDisk(Response response)
    {
        // The response.BinaryContent holds the image bytes
        // Create a file path where you want to save the image
        string filePath = System.IO.Path.Combine("Downloaded_Images", response.Url.FileName);

        // Write the image to disk
        System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(filePath, response.BinaryContent);
    }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Instantiate the scraper and begin scraping
        var scraper = new ImageScraper();
        scraper.Start();
    }
}

In this example, we have created a class ImageScraper that inherits from WebScraper. We override the Init method to specify the starting URL for the scraper and the Parse method to process the response we receive. Inside the Parse method, we use the Css method to select all image elements, then iterate over them to get the src attribute of each image. We then call the Download method to asynchronously download the images and specify a callback method SaveImageToDisk to save them to the disk.

To run this example, you would need to:

1. Create a new C# project (e.g., a console application).
2. Install the IronWebScraper NuGet package by running the following command in the Package Manager Console:

   Install-Package IronWebScraper

1. Copy the example code into your project, and make sure to create the Downloaded_Images directory in the output directory of your project, or modify the code to save the images to a directory of your choice.

2. Build and run your application.

Keep in mind that web scraping should be done ethically and legally. Always check the website's robots.txt file and Terms of Service to ensure you are allowed to scrape their content. Additionally, be mindful of the load you place on the website's server and consider using rate limiting and polite user-agent strings.