How to install Scrapy using pip

Scrapy is a Python-based scraping and web crawling program available in Python Package Index. It means that you can install Scrapy on any operating system if you have pip installed.

Some operating systems provide Scrapy package specific for their operating system, and version thus doesn't require pip for the installation.

However, these Scrapy packages are normally not as up-to-date as those distributed by pip though it's been better tested and integrated with the specific operating system and version.

1. Install pip for your operating system if you don't already have them installed.

   Related: How to install pip on Ubuntu and Debian
   Related: How to install pip on CentOS / Red Hat / Fedora

   Related: Installation - pip documentation

2. Install scrapy package using pip.

   user@host:~$ pip3 install scrapy
   Collecting scrapy
     Downloading Scrapy-2.5.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (254 kB)
        |████████████████████████████████| 254 kB 6.1 MB/s 
   Collecting cssselect>=0.9.1
     Downloading cssselect-1.1.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (16 kB)
   Requirement already satisfied: cryptography>=2.0 in /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (from scrapy) (3.3.2)
   Collecting lxml>=3.5.0
     Downloading lxml-4.7.1-cp39-cp39-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_24_aarch64.whl (6.6 MB)
        |████████████████████████████████| 6.6 MB 52.3 MB/s 
   
   ##### snipped
   
   Installing collected packages: attrs, zope.interface, w3lib, typing-extensions, pyasn1, lxml, incremental, hyperlink, hyperframe, hpack, cssselect, constantly, Automat, Twisted, pyasn1-modules, priority, parsel, jmespath, itemadapter, h2, service-identity, queuelib, PyDispatcher, protego, itemloaders, scrapy
     WARNING: The script automat-visualize is installed in '/home/user/.local/bin' which is not on PATH.
     Consider adding this directory to PATH or, if you prefer to suppress this warning, use --no-warn-script-location.
     WARNING: The scripts cftp, ckeygen, conch, mailmail, pyhtmlizer, tkconch, trial, twist and twistd are installed in '/home/user/.local/bin' which is not on PATH.
     Consider adding this directory to PATH or, if you prefer to suppress this warning, use --no-warn-script-location.
     WARNING: The script scrapy is installed in '/home/user/.local/bin' which is not on PATH.
     Consider adding this directory to PATH or, if you prefer to suppress this warning, use --no-warn-script-location.
   Successfully installed Automat-20.2.0 PyDispatcher-2.0.5 Twisted-21.7.0 attrs-21.4.0 constantly-15.1.0 cssselect-1.1.0 h2-3.2.0 hpack-3.0.0 hyperframe-5.2.0 hyperlink-21.0.0 incremental-21.3.0 itemadapter-0.4.0 itemloaders-1.0.4 jmespath-0.10.0 lxml-4.7.1 parsel-1.6.0 priority-1.3.0 protego-0.1.16 pyasn1-0.4.8 pyasn1-modules-0.2.8 queuelib-1.6.2 scrapy-2.5.1 service-identity-21.1.0 typing-extensions-4.0.1 w3lib-1.22.0 zope.interface-5.4.0

   The installation notes mentions the installation directory, which in this case is /home/user/.local/bin and if the directory is within the PATH environment variable which is where your operating system will look for the program if you run the program without specifying the full path.

3. Run scrapy using full path.

   $ /home/user/.local/bin/scrapy
   Scrapy 2.5.1 - no active project
   
   Usage:
     scrapy <command> [options] [args]
   
   Available commands:
     bench         Run quick benchmark test
     commands      
     fetch         Fetch a URL using the Scrapy downloader
     genspider     Generate new spider using pre-defined templates
     runspider     Run a self-contained spider (without creating a project)
     settings      Get settings values
     shell         Interactive scraping console
     startproject  Create new project
     version       Print Scrapy version
     view          Open URL in browser, as seen by Scrapy
   
     [ more ]      More commands available when run from project directory
   
   Use "scrapy <command> -h" to see more info about a command

4. Add pip installation directory to PATH environment variable.

   $ echo PATH=$PATH:/home/user/.local/bin >> ~/.bashrc #Linux

   Related: How to add PATH environment variable in Windows
5. Start a new terminal session to quickly load the new PATH environment variable.

   $ bash 

6. Run scrapy again without specifying full path.

   $ scrapy
   Scrapy 2.5.1 - no active project
   
   Usage:
     scrapy <command> [options] [args]
   
   Available commands:
     bench         Run quick benchmark test
     commands      
     fetch         Fetch a URL using the Scrapy downloader
     genspider     Generate new spider using pre-defined templates
     runspider     Run a self-contained spider (without creating a project)
     settings      Get settings values
     shell         Interactive scraping console
     startproject  Create new project
     version       Print Scrapy version
     view          Open URL in browser, as seen by Scrapy
   
     [ more ]      More commands available when run from project directory
   
   Use "scrapy <command> -h" to see more info about a command