How can duplicate items be removed from a Scrapy pipeline?

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There are several ways to remove duplicate items from a Scrapy pipeline:

1. Using a set: Create a set to store the unique values, and then check each item against the set. If the item is not in the set, add it and pass it through the pipeline. If it is in the set, drop it.

Example pipeline code:

class RemoveDuplicatesPipeline(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.seen = set()

    def process_item(self, item, spider):
        if item['key'] not in self.seen:
            self.seen.add(item['key'])
            return item
        else:
            raise DropItem('Duplicate item found: %s' % item)

1. Using a database: Store the unique values in a database and check each item against the database. If the item is not in the database, add it and pass it through the pipeline. If it is in the database, drop it.

Example pipeline code:

import sqlite3

class RemoveDuplicatesPipeline(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.conn = sqlite3.connect('database.db')
        self.cursor = self.conn.cursor()
        self.cursor.execute('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS seen_items (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, key TEXT)')
        self.conn.commit()

    def process_item(self, item, spider):
        self.cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM seen_items WHERE key=?", (item['key'],))
        if not self.cursor.fetchone():
            self.cursor.execute("INSERT INTO seen_items (key) VALUES (?)", (item['key'],))
            self.conn.commit()
            return item
        else:
            raise DropItem('Duplicate item found: %s' % item)

1. Using a Scrapy built-in feature: If you enable the DUPEFILTER_CLASS setting in your Scrapy settings file, the framework will automatically remove duplicate requests and items. You can choose from several built-in classes or create your own.

Example settings code:

DUPEFILTER_CLASS = 'scrapy.dupefilters.BaseDupeFilter'

# or

DUPEFILTER_CLASS = 'scrapy.dupefilters.RFPDupeFilter'

# or

class CustomDupeFilter(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.seen = set()

    def request_seen(self, request):
        if request.url in self.seen:
            return True
        else:
            self.seen.add(request.url)

    def open(self): pass

    def close(self, reason): pass

DUPEFILTER_CLASS = 'myproject.middlewares.CustomDupeFilter'