# Scraping excerpts with latest.json (or plugin)
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 2, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428 "2018-07-02T22:10:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@furkle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/furkle)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428/1 "2018-07-02T22:10:48Z")
Hi all,
I was looking at this post [here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/embed-latest-post-teasers-into-your-website/82388) by Daemon Labs, about scraping the `latest.json` endpoint and displaying this as a card layout. Simple, elegant, easy to follow. The problem comes in that I can’t figure out how to get the excerpt property to populate in the topic objects. It’s not that it’s empty, it’s that it doesn’t exist, and when I check the `latest.json` endpoint for this website ([meta.discourse.org](http://meta.discourse.org)), I don’t see any excerpts there either.
I’m not sure whether this was an old feature that no longer exists (it’s still in the API, as far as I saw), or whether there’s some sort of configuration I missed to enable excerpts, or whether this is something I should be doing with a plugin that produces a new endpoint (e.g. `latest-with-endpoints.json`) with excerpts baked in.
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428/2 "2018-07-02T22:29:29Z")
> [@furkle](#):
>
> It’s not that it’s empty, it’s that it doesn’t exist
Are you looking in the wrong place?
> **[Support](https://meta.discourse.org/c/support/6)**
>
> Ask the community for help with anything related to Discourse. To help others help you, share as much detail as you can about the issue and what is occurring, including what you have tried so far from searching, reading the documentation or asking our AI bot.
```plaintext
"unpinned":null,
"excerpt":"Support on configuring and using Discourse after it is up and running. For installation questions, use the install category.",
"visible":true,
```
---
### Author:  [@furkle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/furkle)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2018, 10:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428/3 "2018-07-02T22:32:01Z")
That’s only the category description excerpt, no? What the Daemon post discusses is scraping excerpts from individual topics. Also, I’d like to be able to do this in a single request, without having to scrape multiple category topics or know which topics exist beforehand. Hopefully I’m not misunderstanding!
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428/4 "2018-07-02T23:00:14Z")
Hmm, I thought getting the Category excerpts was what it was intended to do. But looking again, you’re correct, it does mention topic excerpts.
I notice arguments are being passed into the function, but I don’t see where they are defined. I have a feeling I’m missing something obvious. It’s a heat wave here and that isn’t helping me think (that’s the excuse I’m sticking to)
One of the arguments is “feed” and I know excerpts are in RSS feeds, so unless there’s some magic happening that crucial bit is missing in the example?
As for getting what you want “in a single request” I guess that will depend on what you want.
Did you already try it?
---
### Author:  [@furkle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/furkle)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2018, 11:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428/5 "2018-07-02T23:06:28Z")
Ah, somehow I entirely missed that there was an RSS feed. Should’ve expected as much! That’s actually easier as everything else is syndicated through several RSS feeds already.
Thanks a bunch!
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2018, 11:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/scraping-excerpts-with-latest-json-or-plugin/91428/6 "2018-08-01T23:06:28Z")
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