Python Squeezes the Web
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Introduction
Stephen Pitts
Sometimes, when developing a web
application, you want to acquire data
from another source to put on your
site. For example, portal sites like portaloo
place the latest news headlines
on their pages, and the news headlines
are constantly updated without human
intervention.
I ran into a similar problem
designing the web site and database system
of Memphis
Scholastic Chess. They were spending 5-6
hours per week manually locating the latest
ratings for 900 players (having to navigate
through around 75 individual pages) and then
skim the list for players in our organization
on the United
States Chess Federation web site. I used
Python to write a server site program that runs
automatically once a week and downloads and
parses pages from the USCF's web site.
Next: The problem..and the solution »
Skip Ahead
1 Introduction
2 The problem..and the solution
3 All about Python
4 Using Python with VIM
5 Conclusion
