how to get text out of span in python using scrapy? - python-2.7

Question

<div id="eventInfoContainer">
<table>
<tbody><tr>
<td class="verticalTop">
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "ca-pub-2475575566915822";
/* listing page */
google_ad_slot = "4647770957";
google_ad_width = 160;
google_ad_height = 600;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script><ins id="aswift_0_expand" style="display:inline-table;border:none;height:600px;margin:0;padding:0;position:relative;visibility:visible;width:160px;background-color:transparent;"><ins id="aswift_0_anchor" style="display:block;border:none;height:600px;margin:0;padding:0;position:relative;visibility:visible;width:160px;background-color:transparent;"><iframe width="160" height="600" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" allowtransparency="true" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="true" onload="var i=this.id,s=window.google_iframe_oncopy,H=s&&s.handlers,h=H&&H[i],w=this.contentWindow,d;try{d=w.document}catch(e){}if(h&&d&&(!d.body||!d.body.firstChild)){if(h.call){setTimeout(h,0)}else if(h.match){try{h=s.upd(h,i)}catch(e){}w.location.replace(h)}}" id="aswift_0" name="aswift_0" style="left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:160px;height:600px;"></iframe></ins></ins>
</td>
<td class="spacer30w"></td>
<td class="verticalTop">
<span id="eventNameHeader">The Future of Medicine, Health Care and Biological Studies</span>
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<span id="smallerHeading">Conference</span>
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<span id="eventDate">16th to 17th October 2017</span>
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<span id="eventCountry">Rockville, Maryland, United States of America</span>
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<span id="eventWebsite">
<span id="smallerHeading">Website: </span>
http://rais.education/the-future-of-medicine-health-care-and-biological-studies/
</span>
<br>
<span id="eventContactPerson"><span id="smallerHeading">Contact person: </span>Eduard David</span>
<br>
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<span id="eventDescription">We gladly invite you to attend the International Conference The Future of Medicine, Health Care and Biological Studies which will be held at Johns Hopkins University, just 20 miles away from Washington DC. </span>
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<span id="eventOrganiser"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: #696969;">Organized by: </span>Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (RAIS)</span> <br><span id="eventDeadline"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: #696969;">Deadline for abstracts/proposals: </span>21st August 2017</span> <br>
<br>
Check the event website for more details.
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<table>
<tbody><tr>
<td class="verticalMiddle">
<form><input type="button" value="Back" onclick="history.go(-1); return true;"></form>
</td>
<td class="spacer15w"></td>
<td class="verticalMiddle">
<a title="Share this conference on Facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?
s=100
&p[url]=http://www.conferencealerts.com/show-event?id=187457 &p[title]=The Future of Medicine, Health Care and Biological Studies &p[summary]=We gladly invite you to attend the International Conference The Future of Medicine, Health Care and Biological Studies which will be held at Johns Hopkins University, just 20 miles away from Washington DC. " target="_blank" class="fb_share_link">Share on Facebook</a>
</td>
<td class="spacer15w"></td>
<td>
<img src="http://www.google.com/calendar/images/ext/gc_button6.gif" border="0" align="left">
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td class="spacer5"></td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="5">
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "ca-pub-2475575566915822";
/* show event under content */
google_ad_slot = "8943315143";
google_ad_width = 300;
google_ad_height = 250;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script><ins id="aswift_1_expand" style="display:inline-table;border:none;height:250px;margin:0;padding:0;position:relative;visibility:visible;width:300px;background-color:transparent;"><ins id="aswift_1_anchor" style="display:block;border:none;height:250px;margin:0;padding:0;position:relative;visibility:visible;width:300px;background-color:transparent;"><iframe width="300" height="250" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" allowtransparency="true" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="true" onload="var i=this.id,s=window.google_iframe_oncopy,H=s&&s.handlers,h=H&&H[i],w=this.contentWindow,d;try{d=w.document}catch(e){}if(h&&d&&(!d.body||!d.body.firstChild)){if(h.call){setTimeout(h,0)}else if(h.match){try{h=s.upd(h,i)}catch(e){}w.location.replace(h)}}" id="aswift_1" name="aswift_1" style="left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:300px;height:250px;"></iframe></ins></ins>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
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</td>
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</tbody></table>
</div>
How to get text "The Future of Medicine, Health Care and Biological Studies" from above code in python using scrapy?
I tried this code
response.css('div.eventInfoContainer table tbody tr td:nth-child(3) span::text').extract()
But o/p getting like this "[]"

Answer 1

As the span element that contains the required information has an id attribute (which should be unique), this should suffice:
text = response.css('span#eventNameHeader::text').extract_first()
EDIT:
Using XPath, it's similar:
text = response.xpath('//span[#id="eventNameHeader"]/text()').extract_first()