Question

I have the following text and I would like to scrape the data items and save them in excel. Is there a way to do this in Python?

text = """
                                       ANNUAL COMPENSATION                   LONG-TERM COMPENSATION
                              --------------------------------------- -------------------------------------
                                                                                AWARDS            PAYOUTS
                                                                      -------------------------- ----------
                                                                                      SECURITIES
                                                          OTHER         RESTRICTED    UNDERLYING            ALL OTHER
   NAME AND PRINCIPAL                                     ANNUAL           STOCK       OPTIONS/     LTIP    COPMPENSA-
        POSITION         YEAR SALARY ($)   BONUS ($) COMPENSATION ($) AWARD(S) ($)(1) SAR'S (#)  PAYOUTS($) TION($)(3)
   ------------------    ---- ----------   --------- ---------------- --------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
JOHN W. WOODS            1993  $595,000    $327,250    There is no      $203,190.63     18,000               $ 29,295
 Chairman, President, &  1992  $545,000    $245,250    compensation      166,287.50     18,825    (2) Not    $ 29,123
 Chief Executive Officer 1991  $515,000    $283,251   required to be                    45,000   Applicable
 of AmSouth & AmSouth                                  disclosed in
 Bank N.A.                                             this column.
C. STANLEY BAILEY        1993  $266,667(4) $133,333                      117,012.50      4,500               $ 11,648
 Vice Chairman, AmSouth  1992  $210,000    $ 84,000                       42,400.00      4,800               $ 12,400
 & AmSouth Bank N.A.     1991  $186,750    $ 82,170                      161,280.00      9,750
C. DOWD RITTER           1993  $266,667(4) $133,333                      117,012.50      4,500               $ 13,566
 Vice Chairman, AmSouth  1992  $210,000    $ 84,000                       42,400.00      4,800               $ 12,920
 & AmSouth Bank N.A.     1991  $188,625    $ 82,995                      161,280.00      9,750
WILLIAM A. POWELL, JR.   1993  $211,335    $ 95,101                                     11,000               $124,548
 President, AmSouth      1992  $330,000    $132,000                       98,050.00     11,100               $ 22,225
 and Vice Chairman,      1991  $308,000    $169,401                                     24,000
 AmSouth Bank N.A.
 Retired in 1993
A. FOX DEFUNIAK, III     1993  $217,000    $ 75,950                       52,971.88      4,500               $ 11,122
 Senior Executive Vice   1992  $200,000    $ 62,000                       42,400.00      4,800               $ 11,240
 President, Birmingham   1991  $177,500    $ 78,100                      161,280.00      9,750
 Banking Group,
 AmSouth Bank N.A.
E. W. STEPHENSON, JR.    1993  $177,833    $ 71,133                       52,971.88      3,400               $  9,256
 Senior Executive Vice   1992  $150,000    $ 45,000                       27,825.00      3,150               $  8,560
 President, AmSouth      1991  $140,000    $ 52,488                      107,520.00      6,750
 and Chairman & Chief
 Executive Officer,
 AmSouth Bank of Florida
"""

Right now, I’m just trying to get it in a csv style format with an ‘|’ symbol to separate the data items and then manually extract the data to excel:

tmp = open('tmp.txt','w')
tmp.write(text)
tmp.close()

data1 = []

for line in open('tmp.txt'):
    line = line.lower()
    if 'SALARY' in line:
        line = line.replace(' ','|')
    line = line.replace('--', '')
    line = line.replace('- -', '')
    line = line.replace('-  -', '')
    line = line.replace('(1)', '')
    line = line.replace('(2)', '')
    line = line.replace('(3)', '')
    line = line.replace('(4)', '')
    line = line.replace('(5)', '')
    line = line.replace('(6)', '')
    line = line.replace('(7)', '')
    line = line.replace('(8)', '')
    line = line.replace('(9)', '')
    line = line.replace('(10)', '')
    line = line.replace('(11)', '')
    line = line.replace('(S)', '')
    line = line.replace('($)', '')
    line = line.replace('(#)', '')
    line = line.replace('$', '')
    line = line.replace('-0-', '0')
    line = line.replace(')', '|')
    line = line.replace('(', '|-')
    line = re.sub(r'\s(\d)', '|\\1', line)
    line = line.replace(' ', '')
    line = line.replace('||', '|')
    data1.append(line)
data = ''.join(data1)

The problem is that I have to do this thousands of times and it would take forever to go through each table and save the items I need. Is there a way to create a dictionary that will keep track of things like year, salary, bonus, other annual compensation, etc for each individual listed in the far left column?

Answer 1

Here is some code to get you started:

text = """JOHN ...""" # text without the header

# These can be inferred if necessary
cols = [0, 24, 29, 39, 43, 52, 71, 84, 95, 109, 117]

db = []
row = []
for line in text.strip().split("\n"):
    data = [line[cols[i]:cols[i+1]] for i in xrange((len(cols)-1))]
    if data[0][0] != " ":
        if row:
            db.append(row)
        row = map(lambda x: [x], data)
    else:
        for i, c in enumerate(data):
            row[i].append(c)
print db

This will produce an array with an element per person. Each element will be an array of all the columns, and that will hold an array of all the rows. This way you can easily access the different years, or do things like concatenate the person’s title:

for person in db:
    print "Name:", person[0][0]
    print " ".join(s.strip() for s in person[0][1:])
    print

Will yield:

Name: JOHN W. WOODS           
Chairman, President, & Chief Executive Officer of AmSouth & AmSouth Bank N.A.

Name: C. STANLEY ...