I am a relative newcomer to the world of web scraping. I have done some very simple scraping in the past and now wish to attempt something more challenging. I'm hoping that someone on the list can offer some advice and help to build a suitable scraper. I administer genealogical website and am building introductory gazetteer-like pages each of the 500+ parishes we are involved with. The information I am attempting to collect is on a website Vision of Britain (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/index.jsp).
To get to the information I am required to enter a location into a form. This will get us into the main page for the parish where I hope to collect some basic information. From there I must link to the "unit" information and burrow deeper into the database. An example of the procedure is outlined below. 1.Select a location: [Stogursey] 1.Grab some basic background 2.Choose an Administrative Unit [Stogursey AP/CP] 3.Select a Theme [Population] 4.Choose [Total Population] 1.Select Table View 2.Grab data 5. Choose [Area (acres)] 1.Select Table View 2.Grab data Ideally I would like to be able to automate the procedure by feeding the parish names (Location) to the scraper from a database table and return the collected data to the same table In theory all things are possible, but is this a practical exercise to attempt with Piggy Bank and Solvent? Thanks Jim Ottawa, ON. Canada http://www.stoneyburn.ca/ Cornwall OPC Antony/Torpoint http://www.secornwallopc.stoneyburn.ca Coordinator Somerset OPC Project don't just visit join us http://www.wsom-opc.org.uk/ _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://simile.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/general
