I have a quick question about the .select() function: when using this function, do we include a “.” before the name of the tag? Here’s an example:
cocoa_percents =
cocoa_percent_tags = soup.select(".CocoaPercent")
.select() is not a function, .select is a method. You will learn about classes later in the course. For now, I would just accept that method syntax is different from functions
methods belong to a specific class, for example .append():
[].append(3)
we can call .append() on list (instance of list class), while .append() is not available for strings for example.
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Got it, thanks. I tend to conflate functions and methods. But when we’re trying to select the “CocoaPercent” tag, why do we include write it as “.CocoaPercent”, with a period, as opposed to “CocoaPercent”, without a period? Apologies if this wasn’t clear in my original question
Oh, I should read the question better. Are you using python beautifulsoup?
this has to do with html, to select an element we would do the element name ("div") for example, but we can target elements by class (.className) and id (#idName) as well
why . for class and # for id? Not sure, that is something you would have to google.
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Gotcha! That helps, this is exactly what I wasn’t remembering from the BeautifulSoup lessons. I forgot the class and id distinction here.
Thank you for your help!
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