How to Scrape Super Schedule App Data with Python: Login & Topic Extraction

Abstract

Most mobile apps return data in JSON format or as encrypted payloads. This article uses the Super Schedule (超级课程表) app as a case study to capture the app’s network traffic, log in programmatically, and extract user‑generated topics.

1. Capture APP Data Packets

The login endpoint for Super Schedule is: http://120.55.151.61/V2/StudentSkip/loginCheckV4.action The request body (form data) includes encrypted username, password, device information, and other parameters. The request must also include specific HTTP headers; omitting them results in a login error.

2. Login

The following Python 2 code logs into the app and prints the JSON response containing account information.

import urllib2
from cookielib import CookieJar
loginUrl = 'http://120.55.151.61/V2/StudentSkip/loginCheckV4.action'
headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8',
    'User-Agent': 'Dalvik/1.6.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.1.1; M040 Build/JRO03H)',
    'Host': '120.55.151.61',
    'Connection': 'Keep-Alive',
    'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip',
    'Content-Length': '207',
}
loginData = 'phoneBrand=Meizu&platform=1&deviceCode=868033014919494&account=FCF030E1F2F6341C1C93BE5BBC422A3D&phoneVersion=16&password=A55B48BB75C79200379D82A18C5F47D6&channel=MXMarket&phoneModel=M040&versionNumber=7.2.1&'
cookieJar = CookieJar()
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookieJar))
req = urllib2.Request(loginUrl, loginData, headers)
loginResult = opener.open(req).read()
print loginResult

A successful login returns a JSON string with user account details.

3. Fetch Topics

After logging in, the same request pattern can be used to obtain the URL and POST parameters for topic retrieval. The process mirrors typical web‑login scraping.

#!/usr/local/bin/python2.7   # -*- coding: utf8 -*-
import urllib2
from cookielib import CookieJar
import json

def fetch_data(json_data):
    data = json_data['data']
    timestampLong = data['timestampLong']
    messageBO = data['messageBOs']
    topicList = []
    for each in messageBO:
        if each.get('content', False):
            topicDict = {}
            topicDict['content'] = each['content']
            topicDict['schoolName'] = each['schoolName']
            topicDict['messageId'] = each['messageId']
            topicDict['gender'] = each['studentBO']['gender']
            topicDict['time'] = each['issueTime']
            print each['schoolName'], each['content']
            topicList.append(topicDict)
    return timestampLong, topicList

def load(timestamp, headers, url):
    headers['Content-Length'] = '159'
    loadData = 'timestamp=%s&phoneBrand=Meizu&platform=1&genderType=-1&topicId=19&phoneVersion=16&selectType=3&channel=MXMarket&phoneModel=M040&versionNumber=7.2.1&' % timestamp
    req = urllib2.Request(url, loadData, headers)
    loadResult = opener.open(req).read()
    loginStatus = json.loads(loadResult).get('status', False)
    if loginStatus == 1:
        print 'load successful!'
        timestamp, topicList = fetch_data(json.loads(loadResult))
        load(timestamp, headers, url)
    else:
        print 'load fail'
        print loadResult
        return False

loginUrl = 'http://120.55.151.61/V2/StudentSkip/loginCheckV4.action'
topicUrl = 'http://120.55.151.61/V2/Treehole/Message/getMessageByTopicIdV3.action'
headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8',
    'User-Agent': 'Dalvik/1.6.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.1.1; M040 Build/JRO03H)',
    'Host': '120.55.151.61',
    'Connection': 'Keep-Alive',
    'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip',
    'Content-Length': '207',
}
# --- Login ---
loginData = 'phoneBrand=Meizu&platform=1&deviceCode=868033014919494&account=FCF030E1F2F6341C1C93BE5BBC422A3D&phoneVersion=16&password=A55B48BB75C79200379D82A18C5F47D6&channel=MXMarket&phoneModel=M040&versionNumber=7.2.1&'
cookieJar = CookieJar()
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookieJar))
req = urllib2.Request(loginUrl, loginData, headers)
loginResult = opener.open(req).read()
loginStatus = json.loads(loginResult).get('data', False)
if loginResult:
    print 'login successful!'
else:
    print 'login fail'
    print loginResult
# --- Fetch Topics ---
topicData = 'timestamp=0&phoneBrand=Meizu&platform=1&genderType=-1&topicId=19&phoneVersion=16&selectType=3&channel=MXMarket&phoneModel=M040&versionNumber=7.2.1&'
headers['Content-Length'] = '147'
topicRequest = urllib2.Request(topicUrl, topicData, headers)
topicHtml = opener.open(topicRequest).read()
topicJson = json.loads(topicHtml)
topicStatus = topicJson.get('status', False)
print topicJson
if topicStatus == 1:
    print 'fetch topic success!'
    timestamp, topicList = fetch_data(topicJson)
    load(timestamp, headers, topicUrl)

The script logs in, retrieves the initial topic list, and then repeatedly calls the “load” endpoint to paginate through all topics, allowing unlimited extraction of discussion content.