implementation of additional requests

CHANGELOG.rst

@@ -5,6 +5,10 @@ Changelog
 TBR
 ------------------
 
+* Added support for performing additional requests using
+  ``web_poet.HttpClient``.
+* Introduced ``web_poet.Meta`` to pass arbitrary information
+  inside a Page Object.
 * added a ``PageObjectRegistry`` class which has the  ``handle_urls`` decorator
   to conveniently declare and collect ``OverrideRule``.
 * removed support for Python 3.6

docs/advanced/meta.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
+.. _`advanced-meta`:
+
+============================
+Passing information via Meta
+============================
+
+In some cases, Page Objects might require additional information to be passed to
+them. Such information can dictate the behavior of the Page Object or affect its
+data entirely depending on the needs of the developer.
+
+If you can recall from the previous basic tutorials, one essential requirement of
+Page Objects that inherit from :class:`~.WebPage` or :class:`~.ItemWebPage` would
+be :class:`~.HttpResponse`. This holds the HTTP response information that the
+Page Object is trying to represent.
+
+In order to standardize how to pass arbitrary information inside Page Objects,
+we'll need to use :class:`~.Meta` similar on how we use :class:`~.HttpResponse`
+as a requirement to instantiate Page Objects:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    import attrs
+    import web_poet
+
+    @attrs.define
+    class SomePage(web_poet.ItemWebPage):
+        # The HttpResponse attribute is inherited from ItemWebPage
+        meta: web_poet.Meta
+
+    # Assume that it's constructed with the necessary arguments taken somewhere.
+    response = web_poet.HttpResponse(...)
+
+    # It uses Python's dict interface.
+    meta = web_poet.Meta({"arbitrary_value": 1234, "cool": True})
+
+    page = SomePage(response=response, meta=meta)
+
+However, similar with :class:`~.HttpResponse`, developers using :class:`~.Meta`
+shouldn't care about how they are being passed into Page Objects. This will
+depend on the framework that would use **web-poet**.
+
+Let's checkout some examples on how to use it inside a Page Object.
+
+Controlling item values
+-----------------------
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    import attrs
+    import web_poet
+
+
+    @attrs.define
+    class ProductPage(web_poet.ItemWebPage):
+        meta: web_poet.Meta
+
+        default_tax_rate = 0.10
+
+        def to_item(self):
+            item = {
+                "url": self.url,
+                "name": self.css("#main h3.name ::text").get(),
+                "price": self.css("#main .price ::text").get(),
+            }
+            self.calculate_price_with_tax(item)
+            return item
+
+        @staticmethod
+        def calculate_price_with_tax(item):
+            tax_rate = self.meta.get("tax_rate") or self.default_tax_rate
+            item["price_with_tax"] = item["price"] * (1 + tax_rate)
+
+
+From the example above, we were able to provide an optional information regarding
+the **tax rate** of the product. This could be useful when trying to support
+the different tax rates for each state or territory. However, since we're treating
+the **tax_rate** as optional information, notice that we also have a the
+``default_tax_rate`` as a backup value just in case it's not available.
+
+
+Controlling Page Object behavior
+--------------------------------
+
+Let's try an example wherein :class:`~.Meta` is able to control how 
+:ref:`advanced-requests` are being used. Specifically, we are going to use
+:class:`~.Meta` to control the number of paginations being made.
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from typing import List
+
+    import attrs
+    import web_poet
+
+
+    @attrs.define
+    class ProductPage(web_poet.ItemWebPage):
+        http_client: web_poet.HttpClient
+        meta: web_poet.Meta
+
+        default_max_pages = 5
+
+        async def to_item(self):
+            return {"product_urls": await self.get_product_urls()}
+
+        async def get_product_urls(self) -> List[str]:
+            # Simulates scrolling to the bottom of the page to load the next
+            # set of items in an "Infinite Scrolling" category list page.
+            max_pages = self.meta.get("max_pages") or self.default_max_pages
+            requests = [
+                self.create_next_page_request(page_num)
+                for page_num in range(2, max_pages + 1)
+            ]
+            responses = await http_client.batch_requests(*requests)
+            return [
+                url
+                for response in responses
+                for product_urls in self.parse_product_urls(response)
+                for url in product_urls:
+            ]
+
+        @staticmethod
+        def create_next_page_request(page_num):
+            next_page_url = f"https://example.com/category/products?page={page_num}"
+            return web_poet.Request(url=next_page_url)
+
+        @staticmethod
+        def parse_product_urls(response: web_poet.HttpResponse):
+            return response.css("#main .products a.link ::attr(href)").getall()
+
+From the example above, we can see how :class:`~.Meta` is able to arbitrarily
+limit the pagination behavior by passing an optional **max_pages** info. Take
+note that a ``default_max_pages`` value is also present in the Page Object in
+case the :class:`~.Meta` instance did not provide it.

docs/api_reference.rst

@@ -8,8 +8,8 @@ Page Inputs
 ===========
 
 .. automodule:: web_poet.page_inputs
-    :members:
-    :undoc-members:
+   :members:
+   :undoc-members:
 
 Pages
 =====
@@ -48,6 +48,21 @@ Mixins
    :members:
    :no-special-members:
 
+Requests
+========
+
+.. automodule:: web_poet.requests
+    :members:
+    :undoc-members:
+
+Exceptions
+==========
+
+.. automodule:: web_poet.exceptions.core
+    :members:
+
+.. automodule:: web_poet.exceptions.http
+    :members:
 
 .. _`api-overrides`:
 

docs/conf.py

@@ -194,4 +194,5 @@
     'scrapy': ('https://docs.scrapy.org/en/latest', None, ),
     'url-matcher': ('https://url-matcher.readthedocs.io/en/stable/', None, ),
     'parsel': ('https://parsel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/', None, ),
+    'multidict': ('https://multidict.readthedocs.io/en/latest/', None, ),
 }

docs/index.rst

@@ -35,6 +35,13 @@ and the motivation behind ``web-poet``, start with :ref:`from-ground-up`.
    intro/from-ground-up
    intro/overrides
 
+.. toctree::
+   :caption: Advanced
+   :maxdepth: 1
+
+   advanced/additional-requests
+   advanced/meta
+
 .. toctree::
    :caption: Reference
    :maxdepth: 1