scrapy tutorial: cannot run scrapy crawl dmoz

Question

I'm asking a new question because I'm aware I wasn't clear enough in the last one. I'm trying to follow the scrapy tutorial, but I'm stuck in the crucial step, the "scrapy crawl dmoz' command. The code is this one (I have written that in the python shell and save it typing .py extension):

ActivePython 2.7.2.5 (ActiveState Software Inc.) based on
Python 2.7.2 (default, Jun 24 2011, 12:20:15) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5664)] on darwin
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.
>>> from scrapy.spider import BaseSpider

class dmoz(BaseSpider):
    name = "dmoz"
    allowed_domains = ["dmoz.org"]
    start_urls = [
        "http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/Books/",
        "http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/Resources/"
    ]

    def parse(self, response):
        filename = response.url.split("/")[-2]
        open(filename, 'wb').write(response.body)

>>> 

The directory I'm using should be fine, please find below the tree:

.
├── scrapy.cfg
└── tutorial
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── __init__.pyc
    ├── items.py
    ├── pipelines.py
    ├── settings.py
    ├── settings.pyc
    └── spiders
        ├── __init__.py
        ├── __init__.pyc
        └── dmoz_spider.py

2 directories, 10 files

Now when I try to run "scapy crawl dmoz" I get this:

$ scrapy crawl dmoz

2013-08-14 12:51:40+0200 [scrapy] INFO: Scrapy 0.16.5 started (bot: tutorial)
2013-08-14 12:51:40+0200 [scrapy] DEBUG: Enabled extensions: LogStats, TelnetConsole, CloseSpider, WebService, CoreStats, SpiderState
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/scrapy", line 5, in <module>
    pkg_resources.run_script('Scrapy==0.16.5', 'scrapy')
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 499, in run_script
    self.require(requires)[0].run_script(script_name, ns)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 1235, in run_script
    execfile(script_filename, namespace, namespace)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/EGG-INFO/scripts/scrapy", line 4, in <module>
    execute()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/cmdline.py", line 131, in execute
    _run_print_help(parser, _run_command, cmd, args, opts)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/cmdline.py", line 76, in _run_print_help
    func(*a, **kw)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/cmdline.py", line 138, in _run_command
    cmd.run(args, opts)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/commands/crawl.py", line 43, in run
    spider = self.crawler.spiders.create(spname, **opts.spargs)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/command.py", line 33, in crawler
    self._crawler.configure()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/crawler.py", line 40, in configure
    self.spiders = spman_cls.from_crawler(self)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/spidermanager.py", line 35, in from_crawler
    sm = cls.from_settings(crawler.settings)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/spidermanager.py", line 31, in from_settings
    return cls(settings.getlist('SPIDER_MODULES'))
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/spidermanager.py", line 22, in __init__
    for module in walk_modules(name):
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Scrapy-0.16.5-py2.7.egg/scrapy/utils/misc.py", line 65, in walk_modules
    submod = __import__(fullpath, {}, {}, [''])
  File "/Users//Documents/tutorial/tutorial/spiders/dmoz_spider.py", line 1
    ActivePython 2.7.2.5 (ActiveState Software Inc.) based on
                   ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Does anybody know what is wrong with the steps I'm making? Thank you for your help. This is my very first programming experience, so it might be a very stupid issue.

Answer 1

The indentation is not correct. It should be:

>>>from scrapy.spider import BaseSpider

>>>class dmoz(BaseSpider):
       name = "dmoz"
       allowed_domains = ["dmoz.org"]
       start_urls = [
            "http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/Books/",
            "http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/Resources/"
        ] 

       def parse(self, response):
          filename = response.url.split("/")[-2]
          open(filename, 'wb').write(response.body)

I think you copy pasted the code in IDLE, please indent class.

Answer 2

It's not an indentation problem, the error message is clear:

File "/Users//Documents/tutorial/tutorial/spiders/dmoz_spider.py", line 1
ActivePython 2.7.2.5 (ActiveState Software Inc.) based on
               ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

You clearly have copy pasted the code in IDLE including starting strings from the IDLE, which are no code.

Instead of copy-pasting, try opening an editor and actually typing the tutorial code there, you'll learn better and you wont be pasting crap inadvertently.