Re: DOM

James My guess is that whatever the site, the dat will be in a table. It is fairly trivial to strip off everything before the beginning of the table (replace everything up to and including <TABLE> with "") Then replace (say) <tr> with </td> and </tr> with "" Finally strip out the end of the file (</table> and onwards) You will then just have the table data, all seperated by </td><td>, which should be easy to handle (presumably you want to make a distinction between EPIC and price - do this by using the datatype, and there'll probably be a pile of formatting to sort out as well, but that should really be pretty trivial!) Alternatively, you could spend a considerable amount of time trying to get a generic XML parser to work and rebuild a DOM which would no doubt improve your XML skills immeasurably, but you would probably die trying! Tom James Duncan wrote: > Thanks Tom. Yes you have it exactly right. That is the approach I'm > currently aiming for! However, as you say this approach is hard-coded to > each source website. These websites have a nasty habit of changing their > format slightly on a fairly regular basis. I'm also attempting to pull share > price information from many different websites at the same time because none > provide the full set of data I require plus some shares (off market > particularly) are only provided on dedicated web sites. > > The reason I'm attempting to access the HTML textual data via the DOM is > because I can run a looped search on all the #text fields until I find a > match on a company name or EPIC code and then all data on the nested #text > elements will be referring to that company. This allows easy data capture > and transfer to my database. Another major benefit of this approach is that > the same PHP code can be used to search ANY HTML file and recover the > required data without source code changes. That's the idea but whether it's > actually possible in reality is another matter ;) > > Thanks > > James > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom [mailto:tom.mathews@st.com] > Sent: 15 January 2001 10:31 > Cc: php-windows@lists.php.net > Subject: Re: [PHP-WIN] DOM > > James > > If I'm reading your many posts right, then what you are trying to do is pull > the > share prices from the same site at (say) half hourly intervals, so that you > can > use them yourself / analyse them or whatever. > In this case, I suspect that the format of the page you pull down will > ALWAYS BE > IDENTICAL, so you actually only have to work out a suitable parser to > extract > the data once. > If I remember rightly from a couple of weeks back, you are using MySQL as > the > database? In this case, pull the html file down, save it on your server and > examine how the html is constructed (it will almost certainly be an ASP / > PHP > while construct to build a table, all of whose rows will thus be identical > apart > from the data). > Then you can use a command line (run from a PHP script if you like) MySQL > LOAD DATA INFILE 'blah.html' INTO TABLE Share_Prices FIELDS TERMINATED BY > '</td><td>'; > type of construct. > Note that you will want to strip out the beginning and end of the file first > as > well. This may sound like a bit of work, but you only have to do it once, as > the > file format will always be the same (barring the addition of new stocks). > > Tom > > 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? > > > > 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