Documentation

JavaScript-rendered page: wait for populated cards (PHP)

Collect products that appear after JavaScript runs. The browser renders the data, while field extraction still uses ordinary HTML parsing.

Choose PHP, paste the complete source from this article and set the run parameters below. The source for this collection is ScrapingCourse. This walkthrough applies to the specified demonstration page.

Example settings

{
  "path": "/javascript-rendering",
  "mode": "browser",
  "expected": 12
}

path selects the page, mode selects an algorithm branch, and expected sets the control count for this example. It is not a plan limit. When the source dataset changes, check the expected count against it.

How the algorithm works

Open /javascript-rendering with the browser mode. This mode does not submit a form or run a batch-loading loop.
Wait up to 15 seconds for .product-name:not(:empty). The condition requires a populated name rather than just a container.
Read page.content() after waiting. It contains the markup added by page scripts.
Pass the HTML to the shared collector, which extracts fields and removes duplicates as in the HTTP examples.
Close the page and compare the unique product count with expected.

Products are processed by courseCollect($ctx, $html, $seen). Read the name first, skip empty names, and use the card link as the key, falling back to the name when necessary. seen prevents the same key being emitted twice. This matters when a later HTML read includes products already collected.

Details that matter

The browser SDK performs page actions; DOM tools parse the resulting HTML string. Keeping these steps separate lets different loading methods reuse one collector.

PHP details

PHP calls network and browser methods sequentially with ->. courseCollect receives $seen and returns its updated array, so assign each result back. Close the page in finally; $ctx->fail() stops the run with a readable message.

Expected output

The configured demonstration dataset expects 12 unique records. The final check compares the actual unique key count with expected.

Field	Contents
`name`	Product name with leading and trailing whitespace removed.
`price`	Price converted from text to a number.
`image`	Image URL read from the card src attribute.

Complete scenario source

The source is shared by this collection. This example runs its browser branch using the parameters above. Copy the complete block into the PHP editor; no fixed sign-in credentials or service keys need to be added.

<?php

function run(\Sdk\Context $ctx): void
{
    $origin = 'https://www.scrapingcourse.com';
    $path = (string) $ctx->param('path', '/pagination');
    $mode = (string) $ctx->param('mode', 'http');
    $auto = $ctx->param('auto_captcha', true) !== false;
    $seen = [];
    if ($mode === 'http') {
        $url = $origin.$path;
        $visited = [];
        while ($url !== null && count($visited) < 50) {
            if (isset($visited[$url])) {
                $ctx->fail('Pagination returned an already processed page');
            }
            $visited[$url] = true;
            $response = $ctx->http()->withoutCache()->get($url, $auto);
            if (! $response->ok()) {
                $ctx->fail('The source could not be opened: '.$response->status);
            }
            $html = $response->body;
            $seen = courseCollect($ctx, $html, $seen);
            $next = $ctx->dom($html)->attr('a[rel="next"], a.next.page-numbers', 'href');
            $url = $next ? $ctx->url()->absolutize($url, $next) : null;
        }
        if ($url !== null) {
            $ctx->fail('The pagination safety limit was reached');
        }
    } else {
        $page = $ctx->browser()->open($origin.$path, ['*/ajax/products*'], [], $auto);
        try {
            if ($mode === 'login') {
                $dom = $ctx->dom($page->content());
                $hint = '';
                foreach ($dom->qa('p') as $p) {
                    if (str_contains($p->text(), 'Demo Credentials:')) {
                        $hint = $p->text();
                    }
                }
                preg_match('/Password:\s*([^\s|]+)/i', $hint, $password);
                preg_match('/Email:\s*([^\s|]+@[^\s|]+)/i', $hint, $emailMatch);
                $email = $emailMatch[1] ?? '';
                if ($email === '' || ! isset($password[1])) {
                    $ctx->fail('The page does not contain demo credentials');
                }
                $page->type('#email', $email)->type('#password', $password[1])->click('button[type="submit"]');
            }
            if ($mode === 'challenge') {
                $text = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', $ctx->dom($page->content())->text('body') ?? '');
                if (! preg_match('/You (?:successfully )?bypassed|successfully bypassed|Congratulations/i', $text)) {
                    $ctx->fail('The expected page content was not received');
                }
                $ctx->emit(['name' => $path, 'passed' => true], $path);
            } else {
                $page->waitFor('.product-name:not(:empty)', 15000);
                if ($mode === 'button') {
                    $complete = false;
                    for ($i = 0; $i < 30; $i++) {
                        $html = $page->content();
                        $before = $ctx->dom($html);
                        $seen = courseCollect($ctx, $html, $seen);
                        $button = $before->q('#load-more-btn');
                        if ($button === null || preg_match('/display:\s*none/', $button->attr('style') ?? '')) {
                            $complete = true;
                            break;
                        }
                        $offset = $button->attr('data-offset');
                        $count = count($before->qa('.product-item'));
                        $page->click('#load-more-btn');
                        $response = $page->waitForResponse('*offset='.$offset, 15000);
                        if ($response === null || ($response['status'] < 200 || $response['status'] >= 300) || $response['truncated'] || $response['error']) {
                            $ctx->fail('The next batch could not be loaded');
                        }
                        if (trim($response['body'] ?? '') === '') {
                            $complete = true;
                            break;
                        }
                        $page->waitFor('.product-item:nth-child('.($count + 1).')');
                    }
                    if (! $complete) {
                        $ctx->fail('The batch loading safety limit was reached');
                    }
                }
                if ($mode === 'scroll') {
                    $stable = 0;
                    $previous = 0;
                    for ($i = 0; $i < 40 && $stable < 3; $i++) {
                        $page->scroll(3, 400);
                        $html = $page->content();
                        $seen = courseCollect($ctx, $html, $seen);
                        $count = count($ctx->dom($html)->qa('.product-item'));
                        $stable = $count === $previous ? $stable + 1 : 0;
                        $previous = $count;
                    }
                    if ($stable < 3) {
                        $ctx->fail('The feed is still loading: increase the scroll limit');
                    }
                }
                $seen = courseCollect($ctx, $page->content(), $seen);
            }
        } finally {
            $page->close();
        }
    }
    $expected = (int) $ctx->param('expected', 1);
    if ($mode !== 'challenge' && count($seen) !== $expected) {
        $ctx->fail('Incomplete result: '.count($seen).' instead of '.$expected);
    }
}

function courseCollect(\Sdk\Context $ctx, string $html, array $seen): array
{
    $dom = $ctx->dom($html);
    foreach ($dom->qa('.product-item, li.product') as $card) {
        $name = trim($card->q('.product-name, .woocommerce-loop-product__title')?->text() ?? '');
        $key = $card->q('a')?->attr('href') ?? $name;
        if ($name === '' || isset($seen[$key])) {
            continue;
        }
        $seen[$key] = true;
        $ctx->emit(['name' => $name, 'price' => $ctx->text()->money($card->q('.product-price, .price')?->text() ?? ''),
            'image' => $card->q('img')?->attr('src') ?? ''], $key);
    }

    return $seen;
}