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How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage / Expression Web website & put in Excel or Text F
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littledobby
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Joined: 7/18/2008
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How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage / Ex... - 7/18/2008 23:08:54
How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage / Expression Web website & put in Excel or Text File?
I have an ecommerce database I'm trying to build in Excel for our website. I have never made a database-driven website before. We currently have a website with nearly 800 different product pages that we built manually using FrontPage 2003. We need to change our site completely so that it is database-driven / dynamically builds the product pages. I'm using Excel 2007 to at least try to compile the database, since I've already been using a large Excel workbook to keep track of product pricing, shipping costs, etc. I don't know PHP or ASP just yet, and I'm not sure which one I'll end up using. So I'm starting with what I know how to do - I'm decently familiar with using Excel. And I know I need to build the database at the very least before I can have someone help me figure out how to use PHP or ASP and pull from the database. I want to have the database built in Excel, then exported to CSV and uploaded to a MySQL database online that the PHP or ASP Programming pulls from to build the product pages.
As mentioned, I already have a website now (built using FrontPage 2003, but I've already ordered the upgrade for Expression Web 2 that I should receive very soon). For our current site, we have manually created every product page. I need to convert all those pre-made product pages to have their info. in this same database where I already have the items listed by rows with columns for each of the important things (Long Description with Bullets, Short Description, Title, Price, Shipping Charge, URL for large image, URL for small image, etc.).
I need a way to automate pulling data from our current site's HTML and putting it into an Excel or csv or txt file. There is a lot of info. in the HTML files I don't need (tables info., includes pages, etc.). I would especially need to pull the item title, item description, the bullets with their <ul><li></li></ul> tags (some products have 15-20 bullets of info.), the image URLs, and if possible, the metatag data I've already made.
The only way I know how to do this is to go into FrontPage or our site online for every single product page we already have made and copy / paste the product description into a cell in Excel and then copy / paste the html code for the product's bulleted list into the formula bar of Excel for the next cell of that row, and do the same for the images and the metatag data. Our current website has nearly 800 product pages right now. This will take forever to do it manually. Does anyone know of a way I can automate some or all of this giant task?? The URL to our site is www.esbuys.com. Any info. at all will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Susie
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littledobby
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Joined: 7/18/2008
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RE: How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage ... - 7/19/2008 13:44:31
I already know about that site since they seem to be advertising everywhere. But no matter what, I would still need a database to use with their templates, and I still need a way to automate pulling data from our current site into that database. That is what I am looking for help on. Does anyone know how to automate pulling HTML data, stripping the tables and tags, and putting it into a text or csv or Excel file format? Thanks!
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ou812
Posts: 1601
Joined: 1/5/2002
From: San Diego
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RE: How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage ... - 7/19/2008 15:15:40
It sounds like you are looking for a screen scraper. You can either write your own or buy one. I've not done either but a search for "screen scraping" on google returns quite a bit.
write your own: http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/070601-1.shtml
or buy one(they have a free basic one too): http://www.screen-scraper.com/
_____________________________
-brian
EnterpriseDB: Enterprise-class relational database management system
PostgreSQL: The world's most advanced open source database
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littledobby
Posts: 4
Joined: 7/18/2008
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RE: How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage ... - 7/24/2008 12:24:02
Wow! I've never heard of a screen scraper before and would have never known to search for that phrase. Thank you so much! I'll check out the links you left. I really appreciate your help!
Susie
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ou812
Posts: 1601
Joined: 1/5/2002
From: San Diego
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RE: How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage ... - 7/24/2008 12:44:10
Glad I could help.
Whichever way you go, can you report back? I would like to hear how it worked for you, and what you did or used.
_____________________________
-brian
EnterpriseDB: Enterprise-class relational database management system
PostgreSQL: The world's most advanced open source database
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littledobby
Posts: 4
Joined: 7/18/2008
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RE: How do I pull specific data from my HTML FrontPage ... - 7/24/2008 22:36:24
Yes, I will definitely report back. So far I downloaded the free "Basic" version of the ready-made screen-scraper tool. Their site compares the Basic with their two other non-free versions, and from what I could tell, their Basic version would do everything I need and more. But I won't have time to play with my new "toy" until Wednesday next week. I want to take the proper time to go through their online tutorials so that I understand what I am doing and do the thing right. But I'm SOOOOO excited! This is exactly what I needed for a ton of things. I really hope it works like it says it does.
So I'll report back as soon as I get anything out of it. Thank you again!
Susie
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