Web Scraping with Perl

Perl has long been a favorite language for text processing and automation. Its rich ecosystem of libraries makes it easy to scrape websites, parse HTML, and extract structured data. In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to scrape song lyrics and other web content using Perl, and how FoxScrape can simplify scraping pages that block bots or require JavaScript rendering.

By the end, you’ll understand:

1. Perl’s Web Scraping Toolbox

Perl has multiple options for scraping and HTTP requests:

This toolbox allows you to handle anything from static HTML pages to interactive web apps.

2. Common Use Cases

Web scraping in Perl is useful for:

3. Making HTTP Requests

A typical approach is using LWP::UserAgent:

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use LWP::UserAgent;
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my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
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$ua->agent("LyricsScraper");
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my $url = "https://genius.com/DJ-Shadow-Six-Days-lyrics";
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my $request = $ua->get($url) or die "Cannot contact Genius $!\n";

4. Parsing HTML with TreeBuilder

HTML::TreeBuilder lets you transform raw HTML into a DOM tree and query it:

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use HTML::TreeBuilder;
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use Encode qw(decode_utf8);
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my $root = HTML::TreeBuilder->new();
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$root->parse(decode_utf8 $request->content);
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my $data = $root->look_down(_tag => "div", id => "lyrics-root");

To format the extracted text:

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use HTML::FormatText;
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my $formatter = HTML::FormatText->new(leftmargin => 0, rightmargin => 50);
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my $lyrics_text = $formatter->format($data);
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print $lyrics_text;

This ensures your output is readable in the terminal.

5. Making Your Scraper Reusable

Command-line arguments allow you to scrape different songs:

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my $song_slug = $ARGV[0];
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my $url = "https://genius.com/$song_slug";

Run it with:

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perl scraper.pl DJ-Shadow-Six-Days-lyrics

The same logic now works for any song or page, making your scraper flexible.

6. Handling JavaScript-heavy Sites

Some pages load content dynamically. WWW::Mechanize::Chrome allows full browser control:

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use WWW::Mechanize::Chrome;
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my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Chrome->new();
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$mech->get('https://www.example.com/');
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print "Page title: " . $mech->title . "\n";
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# Capture screenshot
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my $png = $mech->content_as_png();

7. Simplifying Dynamic & Protected Pages with FoxScrape

Instead of configuring browser automation manually, FoxScrape provides an API that fetches pages fully rendered, bypasses anti-bot protections, and retries automatically if a request fails.

Example: fetching lyrics page through FoxScrape:

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use LWP::UserAgent;
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my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
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my $api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY";
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my $target_url = "https://genius.com/DJ-Shadow-Six-Days-lyrics";
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my $fox_url = "https://www.foxscrape.com/api/v1?api_key=$api_key&url=$target_url";
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my $response = $ua->get($fox_url) or die "Failed to fetch page: $!\n";
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use HTML::TreeBuilder;
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use Encode qw(decode_utf8);
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my $root = HTML::TreeBuilder->new();
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$root->parse(decode_utf8 $response->content);
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my $data = $root->look_down(_tag => "div", id => "lyrics-root");
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print HTML::FormatText->new->format($data);

Benefits of using FoxScrape:

You can also enable JS rendering explicitly:

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my $fox_url = "https://www.foxscrape.com/api/v1?api_key=$api_key&url=$target_url&render_js=true";

8. Best Practices

9. Conclusion

By combining Perl’s text-processing strengths with HTML::TreeBuilder, FormatText, and optionally WWW::Mechanize::Chrome, you can build versatile web scrapers. Adding FoxScrape simplifies handling anti-bot measures, JavaScript-rendered pages, and retries, letting you focus on parsing and data extraction.

Whether scraping song lyrics, e-commerce sites, or research data, Perl provides the flexibility, and FoxScrape provides reliability.

🦊 Try FoxScrape in Perl:

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my $api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY";
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my $url = "https://genius.com/DJ-Shadow-Six-Days-lyrics";
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my $fox_url = "https://www.foxscrape.com/api/v1?api_key=$api_key&url=$url";

Fetch fully-rendered pages without configuring headless browsers or proxies — making your Perl scrapers faster, simpler, and more reliable.