Metal Archives Scraper

URL: http://www.metal-archives.com/

This script uses requests to retrieve the data and pandas to collect it before saving in *.csv format.

Scraping band names alphabetically

Band names can be found alphabetically on the site. The tables they are presented in are loaded via AJAX requests that return data in JSON format. The script MA_scraper.py retrieves the alphabetical list of band names along with the other information in the table (Country, Genre, & Status).

• The maximum number of band names returned is 500, it can be set by iDisplayLength.

• The starting point in the alphabetical list for a given letter is set by iDisplayStart.

• Every JSON response contains a field sEcho, which if left blank in the URL request will result in invalid JSON being returned, so sEcho is set to 0 in order to avoid this.

Approach

The script collects the data in chunks of 500 bands at a time starting with bands whose names start with a number and then alphabetically. If the response does not contain valid JSON, the script will retry up to 10 times.

Output

The collected information is then stored in a *.csv file with the following column headers and data types:

• 'NameLink': HTML snippet containing band name and link to corresponding band page on Metal Archives (HTML string)

• 'Country': Country of origin (string)

• 'Genre': Description of band genre (string, terms not standardized)

• 'Status': HTML snippet describing band status (HTML string, active / split-up / changed name / on hold / unknown / disputed)

Total number of bands may vary as the site is regularly updated. Check their stats page for a current number.