Using BeautifulSoup Library with Python

Question

I'm following a tutorial on creating a map using Python and the Beautiful Soup library.

I have downloaded beautiful soup and the folder is called "beautifulsoup4-4.1.3". The contents of this folder are in the attached image.

During the tutorial I am given the following code to use to import my data and beautiful soup:

import csv
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup

Trouble is that there is no file called "beautiful soup" within the beautiful soup folder. I have also attached the error message I receive in the terminal.

How should I import beautiful soup when there is no file with that name? I tried simply changing the folders name to "beautiful soup". I did not expect that to work and I was right - it did not.

Any advice on how to proceed welcome?

enter image description here

beautiful soup directory

• mikebmassey: Open terminal, start python and type this: help('modules'). Do you see anything related to BeautifulSoup there?

Answer 1

You installed the BeautifulSoup library version 4, which has been renamed:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

If you want the old name and matching API, you need to install BeautifulSoup 3 instead:

easy_install BeautifulSoup

Note that since your tutorial is using from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup it may not entirely work with the updated API of BeautifulSoup version 4. If you run into problems, take a look at the porting to BS4 section of the BeautifulSoup documentation to 'translate' BS 3 code to the 4 API.

Answer 2

Either move the bs4 folder in the same directory as your script, or install the module via easy_install or pip. Then you can import it like this:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

Answer 3

To use BeautifulSoup 4, you need to:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

It seems to me like you are reading the wrong manual.