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Parse Page (Collect Data from Page)

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Description​

The “Parse Data” action allows you to extract the information you need from a data source based on a variety of conditions, making searches more flexible and, therefore, more accurate.

How to add an action to your project?​

Via the context menu: Add Action → Tabs → Parse Page

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Alternatively, you can use the ❗→ smart search.

Example use case​

A straightforward example of how the “Collect Data from Page” action works:

  • Collect all visible links on the current domain’s page.

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As a result, you’ll get the data in the project’s ❗→ list. And using the ❗→ Remove Duplicates function, you’ll keep only unique links in the list.

Detailed overview of the “Parse Data” action property window​

By double-clicking the “Parse Data” action (in the project workspace), a “Action Properties” window will open, which is logically divided into two parts. The core of each data collection is the data source (from which you’ll retrieve information for further processing).

Main data sources​

  • Variable
  • Active tab (Current ZennoPoster browser page)

Variable​

If you select “Variable” as the data source, the following parameter list will appear:

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  • Variable name - the ❗→ project variable that contains the HTML code.
  • Selector type - query language: ❗→ *XPath or *CSS Selector.
  • Selector - the path that tells it which specific element(s) of the web page to target, using either *XPath or *CSS Selector.
  • Attribute - the HTML tag property that you want to get during data collection.
  • Filter results - boolean value; if checked, you can use a condition on the object: Contains, Does Not Contain, Regex (regular expression).
  • Range - ❗→ condition for filtering data from the array of objects.
  • Save result - after data collection completes, put the result into a ❗→ variable or ❗→ list.

Active tab (current page)​

If you choose “Active Tab” as the data source, the following parameter list appears:

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This is similar to the “Variable” data source, with the following differences:

  • Data type (source: DOM, Html (❗→ what’s the difference?)) - where the data is obtained for working with objects.
  • Only visible elements - only those objects that are displayed on the page.
  • Search in all frames - means searching within any nested (frame) HTML documents that might contain the required data.

Fast way to collect data​

An alternative, faster way to set up data collection can be found in the context menu of the “❗→ Element Tree” panel (or by right-clicking in the browser) → select “Parse Data”. In the window that opens, you can set search parameters and start collecting information in just a few clicks—no special knowledge of *XPath or *CSS Selector query languages required.

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