IMDb Scraper

This is a python script which scrapes some useful information from the IMDb website and sends an e-mail to the user regarding the updates of the TV series which they asked for.

Essential tools needed to run this script

• Make sure you have installed python3.

  • For Ubuntu/Debian based package managers:

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install python3
  

  • For Fedora/CentOS/RPM based package managers:

  sudo -i
  yum install python3
  exit
  

  • For Arch based package managers:

  sudo pacman -S python-cairosvg
  sudo pacman -S python-lxml
  

• Make sure you have installed MySQL.

  • For Ubuntu users:

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install mysql-server
  

• Use the command - sudo pip3 install <package/module>, for example, sudo pip3 install re, and ensure that you have installed the following packages/modules:

  • re
  • mysql
  • mechanicalsoup
  • bs4
  • datetime
  • smtplib
  • email
  • passlib

NOTE:- Some of the above packages/modules might already be there in your system, so no need of installing them again. For example, smtp, email, etc. packages/modules are generally there and you don't need to install them.

Some important points to consider before running the script

• Please enter your username and password used in your MySQL server in the script. Replace yourUsername by your username and yourPassword by your password on lines 22 and 28 in the script. (NOTE:- Username is "root" in most cases.)

• I have used 127.0.0.1 as host name for establishing MySQL connection. You may also use localhost but sometimes it gives an error if socket is not configured properly.

Running the script

• Clone the repository and then change the directory to the directory containing the script and then run it in Terminal (For Linux/MacOS users) or Command Prompt. (For Windows users.)

  • For Linux/MacOS users:

  python3 IMDbScraper.py
  

  • For Windows users: (Make sure your PATH environment variable contains the python directory.)

  IMDbScraper.py
  

• After running the script, enter your e-mail address on which you want to get updates related to the TV series. Then, enter the TV series whose updates you want in your e-mail, in a comma separated way.

• This script takes input for multiple users, so, at any time when you want to exit, just interrupt the script. For example, Ubuntu users can use CTRL + Z command to stop/terminate the script in their terminal.