Add extract guide

Author: fb55

website/docs/basics/06-extract.md

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+# Extracting Data with the `extract` Method
+
+The `extract` method in Cheerio allows you to extract data from an HTML document
+and store it in an object. The method takes a `map` object as a parameter, where
+the keys are the names of the properties to be created on the object, and the
+values are the selectors or descriptors to be used to extract the values.
+
+To use the `extract` method, you first need to import the library and load an
+HTML document. For example:
+
+```js
+import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';
+
+const $ = cheerio.load(`
+<ul>
+  <li>One</li>
+  <li>Two</li>
+  <li class="blue sel">Three</li>
+  <li class="red">Four</li>
+</ul>`);
+```
+
+Once you have loaded the document, you can use the `extract` method on the
+loaded object to extract data from the document.
+
+Here are some examples of how to use the `extract` method:
+
+```js
+// Extract the text content of the first .red element
+const data = $.extract({
+  red: '.red',
+});
+```
+
+This will return an object with a `red` property, whose value is the text
+content of the first `.red` element.
+
+To extract the text content of all `.red` elements, you can wrap the selector in
+an array:
+
+```js
+// Extract the text content of all .red elements
+const data = $.extract({
+  red: ['.red'],
+});
+```
+
+This will return an object with a `red` property, whose value is an array of the
+text content of all `.red` elements.
+
+To be more specific about what you'd like to extract, you can pass an object
+with a `selector` and a `value` property. For example, to extract the text
+content of the first `.red` element and the `href` attribute of the first `a`
+element:
+
+```js
+const data = $.extract({
+  red: '.red',
+  links: {
+    selector: 'a',
+    value: 'href',
+  },
+});
+```
+
+The `value` property can be used to specify the name of the property to extract
+from the selected elements. In this case, we are extracting the `href` attribute
+from the `a` elements. This uses Cheerio's
+[`prop` method](/docs/api/classes/Cheerio#prop) under the hood.
+
+`value` defaults to `textContent`, which extracts the text content of the
+element.
+
+As an attribute with special logic inside the `prop` method, `href`s will be
+resolved relative to the document's URL. The document's URL will be set
+automatically when using `fromURL` to load the document. Otherwise, use the
+`baseURL` option to specify the documents URL.
+
+There are many props available here; have a look at the
+[`prop` method](/docs/api/classes/Cheerio#prop) for details. For example, to
+extract the `outerHTML` of all `.red` elements:
+
+```js
+const data = $.extract({
+  red: [
+    {
+      selector: '.red',
+      value: 'outerHTML',
+    },
+  ],
+});
+```
+
+You can also extract data from multiple nested elements by specifying an object
+as the `value`. For example, to extract the text content of all `.red` elements
+and the first `.blue` element in the first `ul` element, and the text content of
+all `.sel` elements in the second `ul` element:
+
+```js
+const data = $.extract({
+  ul1: {
+    selector: 'ul:first',
+    value: {
+      red: ['.red'],
+      blue: '.blue',
+    },
+  },
+  ul2: {
+    selector: 'ul:eq(2)',
+    value: {
+      sel: ['.sel'],
+    },
+  },
+});
+```
+
+This will return an object with `ul1` and `ul2` properties. The `ul1` property
+will be an object with a `red` property, whose value is an array of the text
+content of all `.red` elements in the first ul element, and a `blue` property.
+The `ul2` property will be an object with a `sel` property, whose value is an
+array of the text content of all `.sel` elements in the second `ul` element.
+
+Finally, you can pass a function as the `value` property. The function will be
+called with each of the selected elements, and the `key` of the property:
+
+```js
+const data = $.extract({
+  links: [
+    {
+      selector: 'a',
+      value: (el, key) => {
+        const href = $(el).attr('href');
+        return `${key}=${href}`;
+      },
+    },
+  ],
+});
+```
+
+This will extract the `href` attribute of all `a` elements and return a string
+in the form `links=href_value` for each element, where `href_value` is the value
+of the `href` attribute. The returned object will have a `links` property whose
+value is an array of these strings.
+
+## Putting it all together
+
+Let's fetch the latest release of Cheerio from GitHub and extract the release
+date and the release notes from the release page:
+
+```js
+import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';
+
+const $ = await cheerio.fromURL(
+  'https://github.com/cheeriojs/cheerio/releases'
+);
+
+const data = $.extract({
+  releases: [
+    {
+      // First, we select individual release sections.
+      selector: 'section',
+      // Then, we extract the release date, name, and notes from each section.
+      value: {
+        // Selectors are executed whitin the context of the selected element.
+        name: 'h2',
+        date: {
+          selector: 'relative-time',
+          // The actual date of the release is stored in the `datetime` attribute.
+          value: 'datetime',
+        },
+        notes: {
+          selector: '.markdown-body',
+          // We are looking for the HTML content of the element.
+          value: 'innerHTML',
+        },
+      },
+    },
+  ],
+});
+```