Yes you can do this in CF, but... Screen scraping is very fragile. It can be useful, but I wouldn't recommend attaching it to a live database. Your competitors could change their template and then suddenly you're selling your products for $0.00. Will you as the developer be liable?
I would recommend, instead of changing the data automatically, just compiling it into a mail message with links and letting the client verify the prices by hand. So build a monitoring service. This would be a lot safer. Is what you want to do even legal? -----Original Message----- From: Nomad [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 6 September 2005 12:01 p.m. To: CF-Talk Subject: CF Spider/Screen Scrape Hello all, I have been asked by a client who operates an online shop to do the following: 1. Create a spider/crawler that will crawl and collect pricing information from a number of competitors sites. 2. Update the clients own database with the information collected undercutting the competitors by few cents/dollars. Can Cold Fusion do this? Can someone provide some pointers for me to get started. I understand that this is not an easy beast to tame. Is there any ready made solution that I can integrate with the clients website (CF based). Will appreciate any help. Thanks Ben Thomas. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. Try it for free with a 15 day trial account. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=67 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:217403 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
