RE: [PHP-WIN] DOM

James, If you are the owner of the dowloaded html page you could use WDDX. Check it out at WDDX.org. Voll -----Original Message----- From: James Duncan [mailto:jd@jamesduncan.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 8:11 PM To: mstearne@entermix.com Cc: php-windows@lists.php.net Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] DOM Hi again, Thanks for your help so far. I will explain what I'm trying to achieve. I want to pull down a web page that contains share prices, extract those share prices, and update a database with the new prices. What I want is a nice and neat solution that runs like a service (i.e. I can stop and start it from a web browser, change the update interval (how long it waits before it repeats the process)), etc. I know a little PHP and Javascript (what I've taught/learnt over the last few weeks). The process I have so far (not implemented at all yet): 1) PHP script that pulls down the relevant web page to my server 2) Data extraction from HTML web page 3) Updating of database with data from step 2 4) Running step 1 again after a certain period of time Step 2 is the most complex by far. I was hoping to use PHP to access the #text value via DOM but obviously this isn't possible because the DOM doesn't exist server-side but only after the HTML has been rendered client-side. Like you say, I could create a form and hidden fields in the HTML file and use Javascript to read the #text node values into the hidden fields. Then trigger a POST operation, where I can read in all the values but I don't like the sound of this because then I would have to have a browser interacting with my PHP scripts!?! I'm trying to create a self-contained "service" that doesn't have any external dependants. Is there any other way of accomplishing this without involving a browser? The only other way I can see is to use PHP to strip all HTML tags, leaving just the text? I could then write PHP code to read in the remaining text, etc. What is the best way to accomplish this? Is there a PHP command that strips all HTML tags (and Javascript, etc) from an HTML file? Example code would be great ;) Thanks James -----Original Message----- From: Michael Stearne [mailto:mstearne@entermix.com] Sent: 13 January 2001 18:40 To: James Duncan Cc: mstearne@entermix.com; php-windows@lists.php.net Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] DOM No, actually I think that using PHP to insert the FORM and then use Javascript to get the #text node values would be easier. Parsing Table cells using RegExs is no fun. Michael On Saturday, January 13, 2001, at 01:06 PM, James Duncan wrote: > But surely if I'm using fopen to insert a hidden form and fields I might as > well use fopen to extract the data from the HTML page in the first place? It > just seems so much easier to capture the #text node values from the DOM, > rather than using fopen to locate the same information!?! > > Another idea would be to use my Javascript to capture the text node values > from the DOM and write it to a cookie file. The contents of the cookie file > could then by read by PHP to populate the database? > > Thanks > > James > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Michael Stearne [mailto:mstearne@entermix.com] > Sent: 13 January 2001 17:32 > To: James Duncan > Cc: mstearne@entermix.com; php-windows@lists.php.net > Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] DOM > > > On Saturday, January 13, 2001, at 12:20 PM, James Duncan wrote: > > > I don't think this will work in my case because I don't control the layout > > of the HTML page and hence can't add the hidden fields. I'm downloading > the > > HTML pages from a website. It would require as much work to insert the > > hidden fields as trying to strip the HTML tags in an attempt to read the > > data directly from the HTML page itself. There must be a way to access the > > DOM directly from PHP? I notice in the manual there is a section regarding > > XML DOM but not the DOM itself. > > > > Are the DOM values only available on the client? If that's the case then > PHP > > can't be used to read them because it's limited to the server side? > > Well by the time you are talking about PHP is out of the picture. PHP can > be used to generate a DOM but once its generated PHP (or any server side > language) is out of the picture, it then goes to the client-side stuff like > you said. You can use PHP's fopen() to grab the page and then add the form > and hidden fields I was talking about. By doing this, you are setting up > the page to be handled correctly by the Javascript code you inserted through > PHP. > > Michael > > > > > Thanks > > > > James > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Michael Stearne [mailto:mstearne@entermix.com] > > Sent: 13 January 2001 17:06 > > To: James Duncan > > Cc: php-windows@lists.php.net > > Subject: Re: [PHP-WIN] DOM > > > > Could you do something like: > > > > > myForm.myField.value=tablejames.firstChild.childNodes[1].childNodes[4].first > > Child.firstChild.node Value; > > > > Set up a form of hidden fields. Extract the values from the DOM and then > > have the user hit a Submit button to get to the next page. At that point > > the values that were collected and put into the hidden form fields will be > > submitted and you next page (the PHP page) could INSERT the values into > the > > database, > > > > Michael > > > > > > On Friday, January 12, 2001, at 07:30 PM, James Duncan wrote: > > > > > Hi folks, > > > > > > I'm still new to HTML, Javascript and PHP but learning (fast hopefully). > > > I've just started accessing DOM elements. I have worked out how to > update > > > the contents of table cells directly using this method, etc. In > Javascript > > I > > > would use code like: > > > > > > alert("Value is: " + > > > > > > tablejames.firstChild.childNodes[1].childNodes[4].firstChild.firstChild.node > > > Name); > > > alert("Value is: " + > > > > > > tablejames.firstChild.childNodes[1].childNodes[5].firstChild.firstChild.node > > > Value); > > > > > > This Javascript shows the name and value of the child element. > > > > > > Now I want to use PHP to extract data (values) from HTML pages like I do > > > with the above Javascript. Is this possible? Obviously with the > Javascript > > > the HTML page has already been rendered in the browser (i.e. all tree > > > elements have been created). This makes extracting data a simple case of > > > finding the "#text" elements and reading in the values. Can I do the > same > > > thing with PHP and an HTML file I've downloaded from the Internet? > > Obviously > > > this file is sitting on my server and hasn't been rendered in a > browser... > > > > > > The whole point of this exercise is so that I can extract values from an > > > HTML table and populate them into a database. Maybe it's easier to > process > > > the HTML file line by line and strip the unwanted HTML tags? However, > with > > > this approach I've got to hardcode each webpage... > > > > > > If this is a silly question then sorry but you only learn if you ask ;) > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > James > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-windows-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > > > For additional commands, e-mail: php-windows-help@lists.php.net > > > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-windows-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: php-windows-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net > > > -- PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-windows-unsubscribe@lists.php.net For additional commands, e-mail: php-windows-help@lists.php.net To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net