phantom - Fast NodeJS API for PhantomJS

Super easy to use

var phantom = require('phantom');

var sitepage = null;
var phInstance = null;
phantom.create()
    .then(instance => {
        phInstance = instance;
        return instance.createPage();
    })
    .then(page => {
        sitepage = page;
        return page.open('https://stackoverflow.com/');
    })
    .then(status => {
        console.log(status);
        return sitepage.property('content');
    })
    .then(content => {
        console.log(content);
        sitepage.close();
        phInstance.exit();
    })
    .catch(error => {
        console.log(error);
        phInstance.exit();
    });

See examples folder for more ways to use this module.

Installation

$ npm install phantom --save

How does it work?

v1.0.x used to use dnode to communicate between nodejs and phantomjs. This approach raised a lot of security restrictions and did not work well when using cluster or pm2.

v2.0.x has been completely rewritten to use sysin and sysout pipes to communicate with the phantomjs process. It works out of the box with cluster and pm2. If you want to see the messages that are sent try adding DEBUG=true to your execution, ie. DEBUG=true node path/to/test.js. The new code is much cleaner and simpler. PhantomJS is started with shim.js which proxies all messages to the page or phantom object.

Migrating from 1.0.x

Version 2.0.x is not backward compatible with previous versions. Most notability, method calls do not take a callback function anymore. Since node supports Promise, each of the methods return a promise. Instead of writing page.open(url, function(){}) you would have to write page.open(url).then(function(){}).

The API is much more consistent now. All properties can be read with page.property(key) and settings can be read with page.setting(key). See below for more example.

phantom object API

To create a new instance of phantom use phantom.create() to return a Promise which should resolve to a phantom object. If you want add parameters to the phantomjs process you can do so by doing:

var phantom = require('phantom');
phantom.create(['--ignore-ssl-errors=yes', '--load-images=no']).then(...)

To create a new page, you have to call createPage():

var phantom = require('phantom');
phantom.create().then(function(ph) {
    ph.createPage().then(function(page) {
        // use page
        ph.exit();
    });
});

Make sure to call #exit() on the phantom instance to kill the phantomjs process. Otherwise, the process will never exit.

page object API

The page object that is returned with #createPage is a proxy that sends all methods to phantom. Most method calls should be identical to PhantomJS API. You must remember that each method returns a Promise.

page#setting

page.settings can be accessed via page.setting(key) or set via page.setting(key, value). Here is an example to read javascriptEnabled property.

page.setting('javascriptEnabled').then(function(value){
    expect(value).toEqual(true);
});

page#property

Page properties can be read using the #property(key) method.

page.property('plainText').then(function(content) {
console.log(content);
});

Page properties can be set using the #property(key, value) method.

page.property('viewportSize', {width: 800, height: 600}).then(function() {  
});

When setting values, using then() is optional. But beware that the next method to phantom will block until it is ready to accept a new message.

You can set events using #property() because they are property members of page.

page.property('onResourceRequested', function(requestData, networkRequest) {
    console.log(requestData.url);
});

It is important to understand that the function above executes in the PhantomJS process. PhantomJS does not share any memory or variables with node. So using closures in javascript to share any variables outside of the function is not possible. Variables can be passed to #property instead. So for example, let's say you wanted to pass process.env.DEBUG to onResourceRequested method above. You could do this by:

page.property('onResourceRequested', function(requestData, networkRequest, debug) {
    if(debug){
      // do something with it
    }
}, process.env.DEBUG);

You can return data to NodeJS by using #createOutObject(). This is a special object that let's you write data in PhantomJS and read it in NodeJS. Using the example above, data can be read by doing:

var outObj = phInstance.createOutObject();
outObj.urls = [];
page.property('onResourceRequested', function(requestData, networkRequest, out) {
    out.urls.push(requestData.url);
}, outObj);

// after call to page.open()
outObj.property('urls').then(function(urls){
   console.log(urls);
});

page#evaluate

Using #evaluate() is similar to passing a function above. For example, to return HTML of an element you can do:

page.evaluate(function() {
    return document.getElementById('foo').innerHTML;
}).then(function(html){
    console.log(html);
});

page#evaluateJavaScript

Evaluate a function contained in a string. It is similar to #evaluate(), but the function can't take any arguments. This example does the same thing as the example of #evaluate():

page.evaluateJavaScript('function() { return document.getElementById(\'foo\').innerHTML; }').then(function(html){
    console.log(html);
});

page#switchToFrame

Switch to the frame specified by a frame name or a frame position:

page.switchToFrame(framePositionOrName).then(function() {
    // now the context of `page` will be the iframe if frame name or position exists
});

page#switchToMainFrame

Switch to the main frame of the page:

page.switchToMainFrame().then(function() {
    // now the context of `page` will the main frame
});

Tests

To run the test suite, first install the dependencies, then run npm test:

$ npm install
$ npm test

Contributing

This package is under development. Pull requests are welcomed. Please make sure tests are added for new functionalities and that your build does pass in TravisCI.

People

The current lead maintainer is Amir Raminfar

List of all contributors

License

ISC