Python3 Reference Generator for StackOverflow

refGen.py

# @Author: Thomas Meeson <thomas>
# @Date:   18-02-2019
# @Last modified by:   thomas
# @Last modified time: 25-03-2019
# @License: Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.
# @Copyright: Copyright 2018 Thomas Meeson


import requests as r
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup as bs
import datetime as dt


#This is specific to stackoverflow as it finds specific classes which are used on stackoverflow to define titles ect


def createRef(link):
    response = r.get(link)

    soup = bs(response.content, 'html.parser')
    title = soup.find('div', id='question-header').find('a', class_='question-hyperlink').get_text() #This gets the title

    creationTime = soup.find('div', class_='user-action-time').find('span').get('title').split(' ')
    creationTime = creationTime[0].split('-')
    creationDate = creationTime[0]

    now = dt.datetime.now()

    outString = f"Stackoverflow ({creationDate}) '{title}' [online] {link} accessed {now.day}/{now.month}/{now.year}"
    return outString

if __name__ == '__main__':

    link = 'https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3552461/how-to-format-a-javascript-date'

    print(createRef(link))

To run, change the link to whichever question you would like, for example:
link = 'https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3552461/how-to-format-a-javascript-date'

and run

python3 refGen.py

whilst in the same directory as the file.

Note, this requires BeautifulSoup 4 and Requests