# Extracting JSON (No LLM)
One of Crawl4AI's **most powerful** features is extracting **structured JSON** from websites **without** relying on large language models. Crawl4AI offers several strategies for LLM-free extraction:
1. **Schema-based extraction** with CSS or XPath selectors via `JsonCssExtractionStrategy` and `JsonXPathExtractionStrategy`
2. **Regular expression extraction** with `RegexExtractionStrategy` for fast pattern matching
These approaches let you extract data instantly—even from complex or nested HTML structures—without the cost, latency, or environmental impact of an LLM.
**Why avoid LLM for basic extractions?**
1. **Faster & Cheaper**: No API calls or GPU overhead.
2. **Lower Carbon Footprint**: LLM inference can be energy-intensive. Pattern-based extraction is practically carbon-free.
3. **Precise & Repeatable**: CSS/XPath selectors and regex patterns do exactly what you specify. LLM outputs can vary or hallucinate.
4. **Scales Readily**: For thousands of pages, pattern-based extraction runs quickly and in parallel.
Below, we'll explore how to craft these schemas and use them with **JsonCssExtractionStrategy** (or **JsonXPathExtractionStrategy** if you prefer XPath). We'll also highlight advanced features like **nested fields** and **base element attributes**.
---
## 1. Intro to Schema-Based Extraction
A schema defines:
1. A **base selector** that identifies each "container" element on the page (e.g., a product row, a blog post card).
2. **Fields** describing which CSS/XPath selectors to use for each piece of data you want to capture (text, attribute, HTML block, etc.).
3. **Nested** or **list** types for repeated or hierarchical structures.
For example, if you have a list of products, each one might have a name, price, reviews, and "related products." This approach is faster and more reliable than an LLM for consistent, structured pages.
---
## 2. Simple Example: Crypto Prices
Let's begin with a **simple** schema-based extraction using the `JsonCssExtractionStrategy`. Below is a snippet that extracts cryptocurrency prices from a site (similar to the legacy Coinbase example). Notice we **don't** call any LLM:
```python
import json
import asyncio
from crawl4ai import AsyncWebCrawler, CrawlerRunConfig, CacheMode
from crawl4ai import JsonCssExtractionStrategy
async def extract_crypto_prices():
# 1. Define a simple extraction schema
schema = {
"name": "Crypto Prices",
"baseSelector": "div.crypto-row", # Repeated elements
"fields": [
{
"name": "coin_name",
"selector": "h2.coin-name",
"type": "text"
},
{
"name": "price",
"selector": "span.coin-price",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
# 2. Create the extraction strategy
extraction_strategy = JsonCssExtractionStrategy(schema, verbose=True)
# 3. Set up your crawler config (if needed)
config = CrawlerRunConfig(
# e.g., pass js_code or wait_for if the page is dynamic
# wait_for="css:.crypto-row:nth-child(20)"
cache_mode = CacheMode.BYPASS,
extraction_strategy=extraction_strategy,
)
async with AsyncWebCrawler(verbose=True) as crawler:
# 4. Run the crawl and extraction
result = await crawler.arun(
url="https://example.com/crypto-prices",
config=config
)
if not result.success:
print("Crawl failed:", result.error_message)
return
# 5. Parse the extracted JSON
data = json.loads(result.extracted_content)
print(f"Extracted {len(data)} coin entries")
print(json.dumps(data[0], indent=2) if data else "No data found")
asyncio.run(extract_crypto_prices())
```
**Highlights**:
- **`baseSelector`**: Tells us where each "item" (crypto row) is.
- **`fields`**: Two fields (`coin_name`, `price`) using simple CSS selectors.
- Each field defines a **`type`** (e.g., `text`, `attribute`, `html`, `regex`, etc.).
No LLM is needed, and the performance is **near-instant** for hundreds or thousands of items.
---
### **XPath Example with `raw://` HTML**
Below is a short example demonstrating **XPath** extraction plus the **`raw://`** scheme. We'll pass a **dummy HTML** directly (no network request) and define the extraction strategy in `CrawlerRunConfig`.
```python
import json
import asyncio
from crawl4ai import AsyncWebCrawler, CrawlerRunConfig
from crawl4ai import JsonXPathExtractionStrategy
async def extract_crypto_prices_xpath():
# 1. Minimal dummy HTML with some repeating rows
dummy_html = """
`.
---
## 7. Putting It All Together: Larger Example
Consider a blog site. We have a schema that extracts the **URL** from each post card (via `baseFields` with an `"attribute": "href"`), plus the title, date, summary, and author:
```python
schema = {
"name": "Blog Posts",
"baseSelector": "a.blog-post-card",
"baseFields": [
{"name": "post_url", "type": "attribute", "attribute": "href"}
],
"fields": [
{"name": "title", "selector": "h2.post-title", "type": "text", "default": "No Title"},
{"name": "date", "selector": "time.post-date", "type": "text", "default": ""},
{"name": "summary", "selector": "p.post-summary", "type": "text", "default": ""},
{"name": "author", "selector": "span.post-author", "type": "text", "default": ""}
]
}
```
Then run with `JsonCssExtractionStrategy(schema)` to get an array of blog post objects, each with `"post_url"`, `"title"`, `"date"`, `"summary"`, `"author"`.
---
## 8. Tips & Best Practices
1. **Inspect the DOM** in Chrome DevTools or Firefox's Inspector to find stable selectors.
2. **Start Simple**: Verify you can extract a single field. Then add complexity like nested objects or lists.
3. **Test** your schema on partial HTML or a test page before a big crawl.
4. **Combine with JS Execution** if the site loads content dynamically. You can pass `js_code` or `wait_for` in `CrawlerRunConfig`.
5. **Look at Logs** when `verbose=True`: if your selectors are off or your schema is malformed, it'll often show warnings.
6. **Use baseFields** if you need attributes from the container element (e.g., `href`, `data-id`), especially for the "parent" item.
7. **Performance**: For large pages, make sure your selectors are as narrow as possible.
8. **Consider Using Regex First**: For simple data types like emails, URLs, and dates, `RegexExtractionStrategy` is often the fastest approach.
---
## 9. Schema Generation Utility
While manually crafting schemas is powerful and precise, Crawl4AI now offers a convenient utility to **automatically generate** extraction schemas using LLM. This is particularly useful when:
1. You're dealing with a new website structure and want a quick starting point
2. You need to extract complex nested data structures
3. You want to avoid the learning curve of CSS/XPath selector syntax
### Using the Schema Generator
The schema generator is available as a static method on both `JsonCssExtractionStrategy` and `JsonXPathExtractionStrategy`. You can choose between OpenAI's GPT-4 or the open-source Ollama for schema generation:
```python
from crawl4ai import JsonCssExtractionStrategy, JsonXPathExtractionStrategy
from crawl4ai import LLMConfig
# Sample HTML with product information
html = """
"""
# Option 1: Using OpenAI (requires API token)
css_schema = JsonCssExtractionStrategy.generate_schema(
html,
schema_type="css",
llm_config = LLMConfig(provider="openai/gpt-4o",api_token="your-openai-token")
)
# Option 2: Using Ollama (open source, no token needed)
xpath_schema = JsonXPathExtractionStrategy.generate_schema(
html,
schema_type="xpath",
llm_config = LLMConfig(provider="ollama/llama3.3", api_token=None) # Not needed for Ollama
)
# Use the generated schema for fast, repeated extractions
strategy = JsonCssExtractionStrategy(css_schema)
```
### LLM Provider Options
1. **OpenAI GPT-4 (`openai/gpt4o`)**
- Default provider
- Requires an API token
- Generally provides more accurate schemas
- Set via environment variable: `OPENAI_API_KEY`
2. **Ollama (`ollama/llama3.3`)**
- Open source alternative
- No API token required
- Self-hosted option
- Good for development and testing
### Benefits of Schema Generation
1. **One-Time Cost**: While schema generation uses LLM, it's a one-time cost. The generated schema can be reused for unlimited extractions without further LLM calls.
2. **Smart Pattern Recognition**: The LLM analyzes the HTML structure and identifies common patterns, often producing more robust selectors than manual attempts.
3. **Automatic Nesting**: Complex nested structures are automatically detected and properly represented in the schema.
4. **Learning Tool**: The generated schemas serve as excellent examples for learning how to write your own schemas.
### Best Practices
1. **Review Generated Schemas**: While the generator is smart, always review and test the generated schema before using it in production.
2. **Provide Representative HTML**: The better your sample HTML represents the overall structure, the more accurate the generated schema will be.
3. **Consider Both CSS and XPath**: Try both schema types and choose the one that works best for your specific case.
4. **Cache Generated Schemas**: Since generation uses LLM, save successful schemas for reuse.
5. **API Token Security**: Never hardcode API tokens. Use environment variables or secure configuration management.
6. **Choose Provider Wisely**:
- Use OpenAI for production-quality schemas
- Use Ollama for development, testing, or when you need a self-hosted solution
### Multi-Sample Schema Generation
When scraping multiple pages with varying DOM structures (e.g., product pages where table rows appear in different positions), single-sample schema generation may produce **fragile selectors** like `tr:nth-child(6)` that break on other pages.
**The Problem:**
```
Page A: Manufacturer is in row 6 → selector: tr:nth-child(6) td a
Page B: Manufacturer is in row 5 → selector FAILS
Page C: Manufacturer is in row 7 → selector FAILS
```
**The Solution:** Provide multiple HTML samples so the LLM identifies stable patterns that work across all pages.
```python
from crawl4ai import JsonCssExtractionStrategy, LLMConfig
# Collect HTML samples from different pages
html_sample_1 = """
"""
html_sample_2 = """
"""
html_sample_3 = """
"""
# Combine samples with labels
combined_html = """
## HTML Sample 1 (Product A):
```html
""" + html_sample_1 + """
```
## HTML Sample 2 (Product B):
```html
""" + html_sample_2 + """
```
## HTML Sample 3 (Product C):
```html
""" + html_sample_3 + """
```
"""
# Provide instructions for stable selectors
query = """
IMPORTANT: I'm providing 3 HTML samples from different product pages.
The manufacturer field appears in different row positions across pages.
Generate selectors using stable attributes like href patterns (e.g., a[href*='/m/'])
instead of fragile positional selectors like nth-child().
Extract: manufacturer name and link.
"""
# Generate schema with multi-sample awareness
schema = JsonCssExtractionStrategy.generate_schema(
html=combined_html,
query=query,
schema_type="CSS",
llm_config=LLMConfig(provider="openai/gpt-4o", api_token="your-token")
)
# The generated schema will use stable selectors like:
# a[href*="/m/"] instead of tr:nth-child(6) td a
print(schema)
```
**Key Points for Multi-Sample Queries:**
1. **Format samples clearly** - Use markdown headers and code blocks to separate samples
2. **State the number of samples** - "I'm providing 3 HTML samples..."
3. **Explain the variation** - "...the manufacturer field appears in different row positions"
4. **Request stable selectors** - "Use href patterns, data attributes, or class names instead of nth-child"
**Stable vs Fragile Selectors:**
| Fragile (single sample) | Stable (multi-sample) |
|------------------------|----------------------|
| `tr:nth-child(6) td a` | `a[href*="/m/"]` |
| `div:nth-child(3) .price` | `.price, [data-price]` |
| `ul li:first-child` | `li[data-featured="true"]` |
This approach lets you generate schemas once that work reliably across hundreds of similar pages with varying structures.
---
## 10. Conclusion
With Crawl4AI's LLM-free extraction strategies - `JsonCssExtractionStrategy`, `JsonXPathExtractionStrategy`, and now `RegexExtractionStrategy` - you can build powerful pipelines that:
- Scrape any consistent site for structured data.
- Support nested objects, repeating lists, or pattern-based extraction.
- Scale to thousands of pages quickly and reliably.
**Choosing the Right Strategy**:
- Use **`RegexExtractionStrategy`** for fast extraction of common data types like emails, phones, URLs, dates, etc.
- Use **`JsonCssExtractionStrategy`** or **`JsonXPathExtractionStrategy`** for structured data with clear HTML patterns
- If you need both: first extract structured data with JSON strategies, then use regex on specific fields
**Remember**: For repeated, structured data, you don't need to pay for or wait on an LLM. Well-crafted schemas and regex patterns get you the data faster, cleaner, and cheaper—**the real power** of Crawl4AI.
**Last Updated**: 2025-05-02
---
That's it for **Extracting JSON (No LLM)**! You've seen how schema-based approaches (either CSS or XPath) and regex patterns can handle everything from simple lists to deeply nested product catalogs—instantly, with minimal overhead. Enjoy building robust scrapers that produce consistent, structured JSON for your data pipelines!