Get <title> of external page using JavaScript [duplicate]

Question

I would like to get the content of the <title> tag from any specified external page, using JavaScript. Specifically, this is using the Code app by Zapier (vanilla node.js v4.3.2), so additional libraries may not be supported.

fetch is supported...

fetch('http://example.com/')
  .then(function(res) {
    return res.text();
  })
  .then(function(body) {
    var output = {id: 1234, rawHTML: body};
    callback(null, output);
  })
  .catch(callback);

Docs state: "Very important - be sure to use callback in asynchronous examples!"

I am learning JavaScript and have been searching and trying various methods for hours. I don't fully understand the two functions in the example - I only need to return a "title", not the full body.

I was using an API designed to get page titles, but it seems to be a bit flaky. So I am hoping I can get titles using plain code.

What is the context? Is this supposed to run in a browser or on the server? — Felix Kling
– Felix Kling, Commented May 29, 2018 at 21:38
This question is not a duplicate! It is specifically related to Zapier, which has specific limitations. Mod should read the question fully before marking as duplicate. — Adam Harte
– Adam Harte, Commented May 31, 2018 at 22:32

Adam Harte · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-29 21:59:58Z

1

If you are using Node JS then you can use Request to get the page, then use Cheerio to parse its contents. To get the title you might do something like this:

const cheerio = require('cheerio');

request('http://example.com/', function (error, response, body) 
{
  if (error) {
      console.log(error);
      return
  }
  var $ = cheerio.load(body);
  var title = $("title").text();
});

If Cheerio is not available, you could do a more lowtech solution, and just use some simple splits. Not very robust, but might get you what you want.

fetch('http://example.com/')
  .then(function(res) {
    var body = res.text();
    var title = body.split('<title>')[1].split('</title>')[0]
  })
  .catch(callback);

edited May 29, 2018 at 21:59

answered May 29, 2018 at 21:51

Adam Harte

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5 Comments

Robert Andrews Over a year ago

TypeError: body.split is not a function

Robert Andrews Over a year ago

Cheerio not available. Regular method produces the above error, which I take to refer to string definition. But I can't seem to successfully use toString() to fix, which is a solution I read about. Any ideas?

Robert Andrews Over a year ago

Got it working, I think - pastebin.com/BEyj0WSm

Adam Harte Over a year ago

Your code looks functionally identical to mine. Strange!

Csaba Over a year ago

what happens if the <title> tag has an attribute? for example: <title data-react-helmet="true">

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