Python tv scraper development

Scrapers Development

Python tv scraper development

Introduction

Historically, Kodi has been supporting XML scraping addons that allow parsing online information sources about movies, TV shows, music and so on. However, this approach has its limitations. First, XML parsing definitions with regular expressions are difficult to write and maintain. Second, many information sources implemented REST APIs for getting information and regular expressions are not suitable for parsing JSON data. That is why Python scrapers have been introduced.

Python scrapers are written in Python language and have similar structure to media addons (media plugins). They are also called by special plugin:// URLs with query parameters. The main query parameter is action that defines a scraping stage. An example of a URL query sting passed to a scraper plugin: ?action=getdetails&url=foo&pathSettings=%7B%22foo%22%3A+%22bar%22%7D. Like other plugins, scrapers are also interact with Kodi via the functions of xbmcplugin Python API module and pass information to Kodi through xbmcgui.ListItem instances. Basically, a Python scraper is a media plugin that passes information to the Kodi database instead of presenting lists of playable media items.

A TV shows scraper must support "action" calls that are described below.

Actions

Find

The find action is used for searching for a specific TV show by title and optionally a year that are passed as additional query parameters of the plugin call. This action should use xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItem or xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItems to pass xbmcgui.ListItem instances to Kodi. If only one instance is passed then it is considered as a perfect match. Otherwise the media file won't be matched and will need to be resolved manually by selecting a necessary item from a list. The xbmcgui.ListItem instances must be assigned the following properties:

• label: passed as label parameter to the class constructor. This is the label that is presented to a user during scraping.

• url: passed as url parameter to the class constructor. This should be some unique string that can be used to request all the necessary TV show info from data provider's

website or API. It can be, for example, a link to a TV show page on a TV information website or a some unique ID to request TV show information from a REST API.

• thumb (optional): passed via setArtwork() of xbmcgui.ListItem class instance method. This should be a URL of a TV show poster, for example.

NfoUrl (TV show)

The NfoUrl action is called as an alternative to find if tvshow.nfo file is present in a TV show directory. The entire .NFO file contents are passed as nfoparameter. This action should use xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItem to pass a single xbmcgui.ListItem instance to Kodi.

The xbmcgui.ListItem instances must be assigned the following properties:

• url: passed as url parameter to the class constructor. This should be some unique string that can be used to request all the necessary TV show info from data provider's

website or API. It can be, for example, a link to a TV show page on a TV show information website or a some unique ID to request TV show information from a REST API.

• Unique IDs: set via ListItem.setUniqueIDs() instance method. A scraper should set at least the default unique ID from the TV information site it works with.

Optionally it can set unique IDs from other online TV show databases. This is needed to correctly get TV show's artwork.

• episodeguide: set via ListItem.setInfo() instance method. This should be some unique string that can be used to retrieve the list of TV show episoded with all the necessary info.

If tvshow.nfo contains all the necessary info about the respective TV show in XML format then this actions may not pass any xbmcgui.ListItem instance to Kodi. In this case Kodi will use all the information parsed from the XML file and will not call getdetails action.

NfoUrl (episode)

The NfoUrl action is also called as for each episode .NFO file that is present in a TV show directory. The entire .NFO file contents are passed as nfoparameter. This action should use xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItem to pass a single xbmcgui.ListItem instance to Kodi.

The xbmcgui.ListItem instances must be assigned the following properties:

• url: passed as url parameter to the class constructor. This should be some unique string that can be used to request all the necessary episode info from data provider's

website or API. It can be, for example, a link to the episode page on a TV show information website or some unique ID to request episode information from a REST API.

If an episode .NFO file contains all the necessary info about the respective episode in XML format then this action may not pass any xbmcgui.ListItem instance to Kodi. In this case Kodi will use all the information parsed from the XML file and will not call getepisodedetails action.

getdetails

The getdetails action must pass a single xbmcgui.ListItem via xbmcplugin.setResolvedUrl() function. This action receives url query parameter from the previous stages and should set as much information to the xbmcgui.ListItem instance as possible using appropriate methods. One of the necessary properties that are set via ListItem.setInfo method is episodeguide. This should be some unique string that can be used to retrieve the list of TV show episoded with all the necessary info.

getepisodelist

The getepisodelist action should use xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItem or xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItems to pass xbmcgui.ListItem instances to Kodi with information about available TV show episodes. This action receives url query parameter that is episodeguide property set by getdetails or NfoUrlaction.

The xbmcgui.ListItem instances must be assigned the following properties:

• url: passed as url parameter to the class constructor. This is some unique string that can be used to retrieve information about a specific episode.

• season: season number that is passed via ListItem.setInfo method.

• episode: episode number that is passed ListItem.setInfo method.

• aired: episode air date (if available) that is passed ListItem.setInfo method.

getepisodedetails

The getepisodedetails action must pass a single xbmcgui.ListItem via xbmcplugin.setResolvedUrl() function. This action receives url query parameter from the previous stage and should set as much information to the xbmcgui.ListItem instance as possible using appropriate methods.

getartwork

The getartwork action must pass a single xbmcgui.ListItem via xbmcplugin.setResolvedUrl() function. This action receives id query parameter that is the default unique ID set by NfoUrl or getdetails actions or parsed form an XML tvshow.nfo file if the scraper haven't set any. This action should set available artwork using ListItem.addAvailableArtwork() and ListItem.setAvailableFanart() instance methods.

Warning: if your .NFO file contains the default unique ID that is different from the ID of the TV show database your scraper works with, you must set the correct default unique ID in NfoUrl action. Otherwise getdetails will receive the default unique ID from your .NFO file and your scraper may not be able to find any artwork using this ID.

episodeguide

The episodeguide string is passed to getepisodedetails action to retrieve the list of episodes. In legacy XML scrapers it was an actual URL of a page that was supposed to contain the list of TV show episodes. Now in Python scrapers it can be any string that allows to correctly identify a TV show and retrieve the list of its episodes. However, the commonly accepted convention for episodeguide is that it should be a JSON-encoded string containing IDs of the specific TV show in various online databases. As a minimum it should include the ID of a show at the database the scraper works with. An example of a JSON-encoded episodeguide string:

{"tvmaze": "60", "tvrage": "4628", "tvdb": "72108", "imdb": "tt0364845"}

Note that all IDs should be strings.

Path Settings

A scraper receives the current path settings via pathSettings query parameters as a JSON-encoded string with each action call.

Example TV Shows Scraper

A very high-level example of a Python TV show scraper can be found in the Kodi source code as metadata.demo.tv addon.