Code to get player lists from AFL tables

get_players.R

library(httr2)         # request(), req_*(), resp_body_html()
library(rvest)         # html_elements(), html_table()
library(tidyverse)

extract_team_ids <- function(link_text) {
  matches <- str_match(link_text, '<a href="teams/(.*)_idx.html">(.*)</a>')
  team_id <- matches[, 2]
  team_name <- matches[, 3]
  tibble(team_id, team_name)
}

all_teams_url <- "https://afltables.com/afl/afl_index.html"



teams <-
  map_dfr(team_urls, extract_team_ids) |>
  filter(team_id != "allteams")

get_team_list <- function(team_id) {
  url <- str_c("https://afltables.com/afl/stats/alltime/", 
               team_id, ".html")

  resp <-
    request(url) |> 
    req_user_agent(getOption("HTTPUserAgent")) |>
    req_perform() |>
    resp_body_html() |>
    html_elements("body") 
  
  make_range <- function(start, end) {
    start
  }
  
  df <- 
    resp[[1]] |>
    html_table() |>
    mutate(DOB = as.Date(DOB)) |>
    filter(!is.na(DOB)) |>
    separate_wider_regex(cols = c(Debut, Last), 
                         patterns = c(years = "^[0-9]+", "y ", days = "[0-9]+", "d$"),
                         names_sep = "_",
                         too_few = "align_start") |>
    mutate(debut = if_else(is.na(Debut_days),
                           DOB + years(Debut_years),
                           DOB + years(Debut_years) + days(Debut_days)),
           last = if_else(is.na(Debut_days), 
                          DOB + years(Last_years),
                          DOB + years(Last_years) + days(Last_days))) |>
    arrange(desc(last)) |>
    select(-matches("^(Debut|Last)", ignore.case = FALSE)) |>
    mutate(team_id = team_id, .before = 1)
  df
}

team_lists <- 
  map(teams$team_id, get_team_list) |>
  list_rbind()

seasons <-
  team_lists |>
  select(team_id, Player, DOB, Seasons) |>
  separate_longer_delim(Seasons, ",") |>
  mutate(Seasons = str_trim(Seasons)) |>
  separate_wider_regex(Seasons, 
                       patterns = c(first_season = "^[0-9]+", "-", last_season = "[0-9]+$"),
                       too_few = "align_start") |>
  mutate(last_season = coalesce(last_season, first_season)) |>
  rowwise() |>
  mutate(seasons = list(first_season:last_season)) |>
  unnest(seasons) |>
  select(-first_season, -last_season)