Client-side communication with aiohttp
In previous sections, we covered examples of implementing asynchronous communication channels with the asyncio
module, mostly from the perspective of the server side of the communication process. In other words, we have been considering handling and processing requests sent from external systems. This, however, is only one side of the equation, and we also have the client side of communication to explore. In this section, we will discuss applying asynchronous programming to make requests to servers.
As you have most likely guessed, the end goal of this process is to efficiently collect data from external systems by asynchronously making requests to those systems. We will be revisiting the concept of web scraping, which is the process of automating HTTP requests to various websites and extracting specific information from their HTML source code. If you have not read Chapter 12, Concurrent Web Requests, I highly recommend going through it before proceeding...