select method for getting tags having CSS

By using select method we can run a CSS selector and get all matching elements. We can find tags also by using select method.

import requests
link = "https://www.plus2net.com/html_tutorial/html_form.php"
content = requests.get(link)

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(content.text, 'html.parser')

print(soup.select("title"))

Output

[<title>Web Form tag  elements in HTML</title>]

All meta tags available within HEAD tag

print(soup.select("head meta"))

Tags with class='table-striped'

print(soup.select('.table-striped'))

All the links inside class='table-striped'

print(soup.select(".table-striped a"))

All links even list

print(soup.select("a:nth-of-type(even)"))

Odd list

print(soup.select("a:nth-of-type(odd)"))

print(soup.select("a:nth-of-type(2n)"))

Example

We can use class name, id , tag with class , tag with id etc.

content = """<h2>List of web programming languages</h2>
<div class=my_list>
<p>My Pages one </p>
<p class=my_pages>My Pages </p>
<p id=ck1>My ck1 page</p>
<a href='https://www.plus2net.com' class='home_link'>Home page</a>
</div>"""

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(content, 'html.parser')

print(soup.select("div")) # all div tags

We will get all div tags in above code.
Let us collect tag having class=my_list

print(soup.select('.my_list')) # class=my_list

Print tags with class=my_pages

print(soup.select('.my_pages')) # class=my_pages

Output

[<p class="my_pages">My Pages </p>]

Print tags with id

print(soup.select('#ck1'))

Output

[<p id="ck1">My ck1 page</p>]

Print all a tags within the class=home_link

[<a class="home_link" href="https://www.plus2net.com">Home page</a>]

Print all <p>

print(soup.select('p')) # all p tags

Output

[<p>My Pages one </p>, <p class="my_pages">My Pages </p>, 
<p id="ck1">My ck1 page</p>]

All <p> tags having class

print(soup.select('p[class]'))

Output

[<p class="my_pages">My Pages </p>]

All <p> tags having id

print(soup.select('p[id]'))

Output

[<p id="ck1">My ck1 page</p>]

Find HTML Table with width="170", then collect the 2nd and 3rd <td> tag value

str1=soup.select('table[width="170"] td')
print(str1[1].string)
print(str1[2].string)

select_one

Print only the first <p> tag

print(soup.select_one('p')) # the first p tag only.

Output

<p>My Pages one </p>

Using CSS selector for XML

Try using this code to get mtaching XML tags with details.

To read XML files

pip install lxml

import requests
link = "https://www.plus2net.com/php_tutorial/file-xml-demo.xml"

content = requests.get(link)

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(content.text, "xml")

print(soup.select("name"))

Output ( sample output )

[<name>John Deo</name>, <name>Max Ruin</name>, 
------
------
<name>Rows Noump</name>]

BeautifulSoup children and parent tags Python- Tutorials

Subhendu Mohapatra

Author & Instructor at plus2net

I write and maintain practical tutorials on Python, PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, jQuery, and web development at plus2net. The tutorials focus on clear explanations, working examples, and code that readers can test and adapt while learning.

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select : CSS selector method

Example

select_one

Using CSS selector for XML

Subhendu Mohapatra