How to use PyCharm to debug Scrapy projects

Question

I am working on Scrapy 0.20 with Python 2.7. I found PyCharm has a good Python debugger. I want to test my Scrapy spiders using it. Anyone knows how to do that please?

What I have tried

Actually I tried to run the spider as a script. As a result, I built that script. Then, I tried to add my Scrapy project to PyCharm as a model like this:

File->Setting->Project structure->Add content root.

But I don't know what else I have to do

Solution 1

The scrapy command is a python script which means you can start it from inside PyCharm.

When you examine the scrapy binary (which scrapy) you will notice that this is actually a python script:

#!/usr/bin/python

from scrapy.cmdline import execute
execute()

This means that a command like scrapy crawl IcecatCrawler can also be executed like this: python /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/scrapy/cmdline.py crawl IcecatCrawler

Try to find the scrapy.cmdline package. In my case the location was here: /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/scrapy/cmdline.py

Create a run/debug configuration inside PyCharm with that script as script. Fill the script parameters with the scrapy command and spider. In this case crawl IcecatCrawler.

Like this:

Put your breakpoints anywhere in your crawling code and it should work™.

Solution 2

You just need to do this.

Create a Python file on crawler folder on your project. I used main.py.

• Project
  • Crawler
    • Crawler
      • Spiders
      • ...
    • main.py
    • scrapy.cfg

Inside your main.py put this code below.

from scrapy import cmdline    
cmdline.execute("scrapy crawl spider".split())

And you need to create a "Run Configuration" to run your main.py.

Doing this, if you put a breakpoint at your code it will stop there.

Solution 3

As of 2018.1 this became a lot easier. You can now select Module name in your project's Run/Debug Configuration. Set this to scrapy.cmdline and the Working directory to the root dir of the scrapy project (the one with settings.py in it).

Like so:

Now you can add breakpoints to debug your code.

Solution 4

I am running scrapy in a virtualenv with Python 3.5.0 and setting the "script" parameter to /path_to_project_env/env/bin/scrapy solved the issue for me.

Solution 5

intellij idea also work.

create main.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
#coding=utf-8
import sys
from scrapy import cmdline
def main(name):
    if name:
        cmdline.execute(name.split())



if __name__ == '__main__':
    print('[*] beginning main thread')
    name = "scrapy crawl stack"
    #name = "scrapy crawl spa"
    main(name)
    print('[*] main thread exited')
    print('main stop====================================================')

show below:

View more solutions

Comments

[Aymon Fournier]

(<type 'exceptions.SyntaxError'>, SyntaxError("Non-ASCII character '\\xf3' in file /Library/python/2.7/site-packages/scrapy/cmdline.pyc on line 1, but no encoding declared;

[Pullie]

@AymonFournier: Different problem, not related to the original question. See: stackoverflow.com/questions/10589620/…£

[Nour Wolf]

Great solution! I also tried using the scrapy binary itself located mostly in: /usr/bin/scrapy as the script with same parameters or any other scrapy commands you want to debug and it worked just perfect. make sure the working directory is pointing to your scrapy project root where scrapy.cfg is located.

[gm2008]

I am using Komodo IDE and ActivePython. Both this solution and Pullie's solution work.

[Artur Gaspar]

@AymonFournier It seems you are trying to run a .pyc file. Run the corresponding .py file instead (scrapy/cmdline.py).

[aristotll]

This is a awesome solution.

[suntoch]

If I'm doing that, my settings module is not found. ImportError: No module named settings I have checked that the working directory is the project directory. It's used within a Django project. Anyone else stumbled upon this problem?

[user1592380]

I'm suprised this works, I thought scrapy didn't work with python 3

[javamonkey79]

Using this method, the configuration for scrapy seems to be ignored. I'm not sure why.

[wyx]

This method is more useful.

[effel]

Thanks, this worked with Python 3.5 and virtualenv. "script" as @rioted said and setting "working directory" to project/crawler/crawler, i.e., the directory holding __init__.py.

[zsljulius]

This one saves my life! Thanks!

[miguelfg]

You might want to configure multiple executions for different spiders, so accept spider name as an argument of your run config. Then import sys spider = sys.argv[1] cmdline.execute("scrapy crawl {}".format(spider).split())

[José Tomás Tocino]

Definitely the cleanest and fastest way of doing it, also the best way to store it in your CVS.

[crifan]

Not forget to config Working directory, otherwise will error no active project, Unknown command: crawl, Use "scrapy" to see available commands, Process finished with exit code 2

[NFB]

@miguelfg, can you elaborate on how to pass a spider name as an argument in run config without doing so manually each time you run the project?

[malla]

I tried the accepted answer but couldn't make it work. This solution is easier and works perfectly.

[Utkarsh Sharma]

You are a genius. Thanks for this solution.

[Rob]

I use something similar to this called runner.py. The reason this is important is because it intentionally loads the project settings file. You must do this if you are trying to load pipeline(s).

[Amrit]

it says : from scrapy.http.headers import Headers ImportError: cannot import name 'Headers' from partially initialized module 'scrapy.http.headers most likely due to a circular import Python38