How to download files with Selenider

[rgmerck]

HI, I have a question.
In the process of webscrapping I need chromote to download files when clicking a css element on screen. The click works, but the default chromote session opened by selenider does not support downloading files. In chromote it is possible to set such an option with :

b$Browser$setDownloadBehavior(behavior = "allow", downloadPath = "<path_to_folder>")

But there does not seem to be a way to pass such settings through the chromote_options() function. Is this something that can be added, or is there a different way to achieve this in selenider?

[ashbythorpe]

If your selenider session is named session, then session$driver should get you the underlying chromote session, i.e.

session <- selenider_session()

session$driver$Browser$setDownloadBehavior(behavior = "allow", downloadPath = "<path_to_folder>")

[rgmerck]

thanks let me see if this works!

[rgmerck]

thanks! working great. I wonder if this would be worth adding to your documentation, and not just for the downloading part, but for passing options to chromote?

[ashbythorpe]

I'm working on a new vignette that would go through this (#34).

[beethoven111]

Unfortunately, it does not work for me with this website: "https://www-genesis.destatis.de/datenbank/online/statistic/43331/table/43331-0001#modal=table-download&params=JTVCJTdCJTIycGFyYW1zJTIyJTNBJTdCJTIyaWQlMjIlM0ElMjIlMjIlN0QlN0QlNUQ="

-> I want to download the .xlsx file by clicking the XLSX button.

My code:

session <- selenider_session()
session$driver$Browser$setDownloadBehavior(behavior = "allow", downloadPath = "C:/Users/a.name/downloads/data.xlsx")
open_url(session = session,"https://www-genesis.destatis.de/datenbank/online/statistic/47414/table/47414-0005#modal=table-download&params=JTVCJTdCJTIycGFyYW1zJTIyJTNBJTdCJTIyaWQlMjIlM0ElMjIlMjIlN0QlN0QlNUQ=")
button <- s(".button-button.statistic-table-download-modal-overlay-button[title='XLSX Format']") 
button |> elem_click()

The only thing that happens, is that an empty folder named "data.xlsx" will be saved in "C:/Users/a.name/downloads/".

Is there any solution to this? I would be really interested if anyone is able to download this file with selenider in R (chromote). The website was just recently launched by the German federal Statistical Office. I would be very glad for help. Thank you!

[ashbythorpe]

This works for me:

library(selenider)

session <- selenider_session(timeout = 10)

session$driver$Browser$setDownloadBehavior(behavior = "allow", downloadPath = ".test")

open_url("https://www-genesis.destatis.de/datenbank/online/statistic/47414/table/47414-0005#modal=table-download&params=JTVCJTdCJTIycGFyYW1zJTIyJTNBJTdCJTIyaWQlMjIlM0ElMjIlMjIlN0QlN0QlNUQ=")

s(".button-button.statistic-table-download-modal-overlay-button[title='XLSX Format']") |>
  elem_click()

# Wait for the file to be downloaded
Sys.sleep(10)