Witango-Talk: how would I parse this?

[Roland Dumas]

How would I go about parsing a file in to clean variables?

about a year ago, I created an unthreaded forum. Not wanting to put it on FMP, and witango not ready for Mac, I made it file-based. Each submission writes a file with the guts of the message in it and then a link is created to a .tml that sucks up the guts as an include into a formatted page.

http://www.patricknagel.com/forum/forum.taf

OK, it's ugly, but it worked.

Someone reminded me that when mysql and witango talked, I'd redo that as a database app so it can be searched, etc.

Yesterday, I did that, and now have a challenge. Getting all those messages into the database. I can copy/paste about 1000 files, which will take forever and be boring as hell. Then, I might come up with a way to read and parse these messages and auto-submit.

Since the files are serial numbered: 101.txt, 102.txt, etc.

I was thinking of a taf that looped through a number sequence, read each file, parsed it, turned the pieces into variables, and then submitted to database. The question is how to parse it.

Here is a typical file:

<H1>I have two Nagels</H1>
<H2>Roni</H2>
<p><A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A></p>
<h2>07/23/03</H2>
<p>I have two Nagel prints with CERT. OF AUTHENTICITY.... but, they don't say a name on them.. HOW DO I FIND OUT WHAT THEY ARE WORTH? HOW DO I LOOK THEM UP..? THE CERTIFICATE NUMBERS ARE B4288G & B101250.. I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE anyone's assistance with this. [EMAIL PROTECTED]</p>
<center>
<form name="reply" method="post" action="/forum/forum.taf?_function=reply">
<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="I have two Nagels">
<input type="hidden" name="author" value="Roni">
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I have two Nagel prints with CERT. OF AUTHENTICITY.... but, they don't say a name on them.. HOW DO I FIND OUT WHAT THEY ARE WORTH? HOW DO I LOOK THEM UP..? THE CERTIFICATE NUMBERS ARE B4288G & B101250.. I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE anyone's assistance with this. [EMAIL PROTECTED]">
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Respond to this message">
</form>
</center>

Everything past the first <center> is unnecessary. Got an idea how best to do that?
Thanks for any hints.

RAD