README

A PHP SDK for interacting with the WebCrawlerAPI - a powerful web crawling and scraping service.

In order to use the API you have to get an API key from WebCrawlerAPI

Read documentation at WebCrawlerAPI Docs for more information.

Requirements

PHP 8.0 or higher
Composer
ext-json PHP extension
Guzzle HTTP Client 7.0 or higher

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require webcrawlerapi/sdk

Usage

use WebCrawlerAPI\WebCrawlerAPI;

// Initialize the client
$crawler = new WebCrawlerAPI('your_api_key');

// Synchronous crawling (blocks until completion)
$job = $crawler->crawl(
    url: 'https://example.com',
    scrapeType: 'markdown',
    itemsLimit: 10,
    webhookUrl: 'https://yourserver.com/webhook',
    allowSubdomains: false,
    maxPolls: 100  // Optional: maximum number of status checks
);
echo "Job completed with status: {$job->status}\n";

// Access job items and their content
foreach ($job->jobItems as $item) {
    echo "Page title: {$item->title}\n";
    echo "Original URL: {$item->originalUrl}\n";
    echo "Item status: {$item->status}\n";
    
    // Get the content based on job's scrape_type
    // Returns null if item is not in "done" status
    $content = $item->getContent();
    if ($content) {
        echo "Content length: " . strlen($content) . "\n";
        echo "Content preview: " . substr($content, 0, 200) . "...\n";
    } else {
        echo "Content not available or item not done\n";
    }
}

// Access job items and their parent job
foreach ($job->jobItems as $item) {
    echo "Item URL: {$item->originalUrl}\n";
    echo "Parent job status: {$item->job->status}\n";
    echo "Parent job URL: {$item->job->url}\n";
}

// Or use asynchronous crawling
$response = $crawler->crawlAsync(
    url: 'https://example.com',
    scrapeType: 'markdown',
    itemsLimit: 10,
    webhookUrl: 'https://yourserver.com/webhook',
    allowSubdomains: false
);

// Get the job ID from the response
$jobId = $response->id;
echo "Crawling job started with ID: {$jobId}\n";

// Check job status and get results
$job = $crawler->getJob($jobId);
echo "Job status: {$job->status}\n";

// Access job details
echo "Crawled URL: {$job->url}\n";
echo "Created at: {$job->createdAt->format('Y-m-d H:i:s')}\n";
echo "Number of items: " . count($job->jobItems) . "\n";

// Cancel a running job if needed
$cancelResponse = $crawler->cancelJob($jobId);
echo "Cancellation response: " . json_encode($cancelResponse) . "\n";

API Methods

crawl()

Starts a new crawling job and waits for its completion. This method will continuously poll the job status until:

The job reaches a terminal state (done, error, or cancelled)
The maximum number of polls is reached (default: 100)
The polling interval is determined by the server's recommendedPullDelayMs or defaults to 5 seconds

crawlAsync()

Starts a new crawling job and returns immediately with a job ID. Use this when you want to handle polling and status checks yourself, or when using webhooks.

getJob()

Retrieves the current status and details of a specific job.

cancelJob()

Cancels a running job. Any items that are not in progress or already completed will be marked as canceled and will not be charged.

Parameters

Crawl Methods (crawl and crawlAsync)

url (required): The seed URL where the crawler starts. Can be any valid URL.
scrapeType (default: "html"): The type of scraping you want to perform. Can be "html", "cleaned", or "markdown".
itemsLimit (default: 10): Crawler will stop when it reaches this limit of pages for this job.
webhookUrl (optional): The URL where the server will send a POST request once the task is completed.
allowSubdomains (default: false): If true, the crawler will also crawl subdomains.
whitelistRegexp (optional): A regular expression to whitelist URLs. Only URLs that match the pattern will be crawled.
blacklistRegexp (optional): A regular expression to blacklist URLs. URLs that match the pattern will be skipped.
maxPolls (optional, crawl only): Maximum number of status checks before returning (default: 100)

Responses

CrawlAsync Response

The crawlAsync() method returns a CrawlResponse object with:

id: The unique identifier of the created job

Job Response

The Job object contains detailed information about the crawling job:

id: The unique identifier of the job
orgId: Your organization identifier
url: The seed URL where the crawler started
status: The status of the job (new, in_progress, done, error)
scrapeType: The type of scraping performed
createdAt: The date when the job was created
finishedAt: The date when the job was finished (if completed)
webhookUrl: The webhook URL for notifications
webhookStatus: The status of the webhook request
webhookError: Any error message if the webhook request failed
jobItems: Array of JobItem objects representing crawled pages
recommendedPullDelayMs: Server-recommended delay between status checks

JobItem Properties

Each JobItem object represents a crawled page and contains:

id: The unique identifier of the item
jobId: The parent job identifier
job: Reference to the parent Job object
originalUrl: The URL of the page
pageStatusCode: The HTTP status code of the page request
status: The status of the item (new, in_progress, done, error)
title: The page title
createdAt: The date when the item was created
cost: The cost of the item in $
referredUrl: The URL where the page was referred from
lastError: Any error message if the item failed
errorCode: The error code if the item failed (if available)
getContent(): Method to get the page content based on the job's scrapeType (html, cleaned, or markdown). Returns null if the item's status is not "done" or if content is not available. Content is automatically fetched and cached when accessed.
rawContentUrl: URL to the raw content (if available)
cleanedContentUrl: URL to the cleaned content (if scrapeType is "cleaned")
markdownContentUrl: URL to the markdown content (if scrapeType is "markdown")

License

MIT License

webcrawlerapi / sdk

Maintainers

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