[Tut] I Used This Python Script to Check a Website Every X Seconds for a Given Word

[Tut] I Used This Python Script to Check a Website Every X Seconds for a Given Word - Printable Version

+- Sick Gaming (https://sickgaming.net)
+-- Forum: Programming (https://sickgaming.net/forum-76.html)
+--- Forum: Python (https://sickgaming.net/forum-83.html)
+--- Thread: [Tut] I Used This Python Script to Check a Website Every X Seconds for a Given Word (/thread-100555.html)

[Tut] I Used This Python Script to Check a Website Every X Seconds for a Given Word - xSicKxBot - 01-11-2023

I Used This Python Script to Check a Website Every X Seconds for a Given Word

5/5 – (1 vote)

I host multiple websites such as

Many of them use caching services to speed up the loading time for visitors worldwide. Consequently, when I do change a website, the change does often not appear immediately on the site (because the stale cached site is served up).

The Project

[Image: image-109.png]

To ensure that my website is up-to-date, I wrote a simple Python script that helps me regularly check my website every few seconds to see if a certain word appears there.

Because I thought many people will probably have the same problem, I’ll share this code here. So, let’s get started!

Project Challenge: How to write a Python script that reads content from a website every

Code:
x

seconds and checks if a specific word appears there?

The Code

[Image: check_website_word.gif]

I used the following code to accomplish this easily and quickly. You can copy&paste it, just make sure to adjust the highlighted

Code:
url

Code:
word

, and

Code:
x

variables to your need:

Code:
import requests
import time url = 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_partition'
word = 'finxter'
x = 60 # seconds between two requests # Repeat forever
while True: # Get the content from the website r = requests.get(url) # Check if word is on website if word in r.text: print("The word appears on the website") else: print("The word does not appear on the website") # Do nothing for some time (e.g., 60 seconds) to avoid spam requests time.sleep(x)

In this case, I check the Wikipedia page on Graph Partitioning if the keyword

Code:
'finxter'

appears there. If you need to check another word on another URL, just change the variables accordingly.

Code Explanation

[Image: image-107-1024x768.png]

This code snippet uses the Python

Code:
requests

library to read from a website every two seconds and check if a certain word appears there.

You use the

Code:
requests

library to issue an HTTP request to the specified website and save the response in the variable

Code:
r

Code:
get()

Then you check if the word appears in the response text using

Code:
r.text

If it does, it prints the message
Code:
"The word appears on the website"
and
If it does not, it prints the message
Code:
"The word does not appear on the website"
.

Finally, the code pauses for two (or

Code:
x

!) seconds before making another request. This process is repeated continuously to ensure that the website is checked regularly.

You can stop the code by hitting

Code:
CTRL+C

Recommended: How to Stop a Python Script?