session: Simulate a session in web browser

In rvest: Easily Harvest (Scrape) Web Pages

Simulate a session in web browser

Description

This set of functions allows you to simulate a user interacting with a website, using forms and navigating from page to page.

• Create a session with session(url)

• Navigate to a specified url with session_jump_to(), or follow a link on the page with session_follow_link().

• Submit an html_form with session_submit().

• View the history with session_history() and navigate back and forward with session_back() and session_forward().

• Extract page contents with html_element() and html_elements(), or get the complete HTML document with read_html().

• Inspect the HTTP response with httr::cookies(), httr::headers(), and httr::status_code().

Usage

session(url, ...)

is.session(x)

session_jump_to(x, url, ...)

session_follow_link(x, i, css, xpath, ...)

session_back(x)

session_forward(x)

session_history(x)

session_submit(x, form, submit = NULL, ...)

Arguments

url	A URL, either relative or absolute, to navigate to.
...	Any additional httr config to use throughout the session.
x	A session.
i	A integer to select the ith link or a string to match the first link containing that text (case sensitive).
css, xpath	Elements to select. Supply one of css or xpath depending on whether you want to use a CSS selector or XPath 1.0 expression.
form	An html_form to submit
submit	Which button should be used to submit the form? NULL, the default, uses the first button. A string selects a button by its name. A number selects a button using its relative position.

Examples

s <- session("http://hadley.nz")
s |>
  session_jump_to("hadley.jpg") |>
  session_jump_to("/") |>
  session_history()

s |>
  session_jump_to("hadley.jpg") |>
  session_back() |>
  session_history()


s |>
  session_follow_link(css = "p a") |>
  html_elements("p")

rvest documentation built on Aug. 29, 2025, 5:34 p.m.