Question

i want to parse a site with the PHP DOM-Document way: Note it is faster and easier to use. Some of you have convinced me!! One question – since i am a php-newbie 😉 can i apply the XPaths-code

Example: http://buergerstiftungen.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-F8780E81-ABF20567/buergerstiftungen/hs.xsl/db.htm

Goal: to fetch the results ( approx 213 different records) too and parse them in order to get a database-dump for the saving on a local MySQL-Db!?

by the way: see two resultpages:

http://buergerstiftungen.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-F8780E81-ABF20567/buergerstiftungen/hs.xsl/db_20302.htm
http://buergerstiftungen.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-F8780E81-ABF20567/buergerstiftungen/hs.xsl/db_20289.htm

You see there are lots of information stored…

well i have tried to do write a scraper with Perl – but i had no luck. Perl is for newbies very very hard. Afterwards i tired to write a parser in PHP – it is a bit easier. But the site (see the detail-resultpages) are a bit complex. How to parse them – in order to get the dataset for a locally based MySQL database. Then i have more opportunities for a retrieval.
I want to get the datas to have them local (on my OpenSuse Linux System Version 11.3) in a MySQL-database.

well: i have three parts:

1. fetching
2. parsing
3. storing (in MySQL: that is creating a MySQL-dump)

Since i have some very little experience with XPath i have a Xpather-Tool in my Mozilla-Browser. But i am not sure how i should apply them – see the data i gathered – below:
Perhaps some of you can help me here – and show me how to apply them in a parsercode:

I love to hear from you

See here some details:
for the results (from the approx 213 different records) – see two resultpages: – gathered some Xpath-datas:

Example: Bürgerstiftung Wiesloch
http://buergerstiftungen.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-A7DCD0D1-702CE0FA/buergerstiftungen/hs.xsl/db_20289.htm

/html/body/div[@id=’main’]/div[@id=’wrapper’]/div[@id=’inner’]/div[@id=’marginalblock’]/div[1]/p

1. Gründungsgeschichte
/html/body/div[@id=’main’]/div[@id=’wrapper’]/div[@id=’inner’]/div[@id=’contentblock’]/div/p[1]/strong

2. Kurzvorstellung/Ziele
/html/body/div[@id=’main’]/div[@id=’wrapper’]/div[@id=’inner’]/div[@id=’contentblock’]/div/p[2]/span[2]/span/b

3. Projekte
/html/body/div[@id=’main’]/div[@id=’wrapper’]/div[@id=’inner’]/div[@id=’contentblock’]/div/p[3]/span[2]/span/strong

Kontakt:
/html/body/div[@id=’main’]/div[@id=’wrapper’]/div[@id=’inner’]/div[@id=’marginalblock’]/div[1]/h6

Question: well, how to apply the gained datas in the Libxml – in order to get the PARSER-Part up and running!? I am a XPath-starter!

Look forward to hear from you!
zero

PS – if i have to add more infos – or if i have to ask more propperly – plz let me know! Sorry for being the newbie!;-)

PPS – and update: i have the Mysql-part: it can look like this:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `address` (
`id` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`name` varchar(30) default NULL,
`contact-details` varchar(30) default NULL,
`street` varchar(30) default NULL,
`postal-code` varchar(30) default NULL,
`town` varchar(30) default NULL,
`phone` varchar(30) default NULL,
`email` varchar(30) default NULL,
`homepage` varchar(30) default NULL,
`summary` varchar(30) default NULL,
`projects` varchar(30) default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=9 ;

something like this would fit the needs..

Update; many many thanks Lenzai for the quick answer:

you suggest to try something like this:

$url="http://...";
$xpath_query="/html/body/...";

/html/body/div[@id='main']/div[@id='wrapper']/div[@id='inner']/div[@id='marginalblock']/div[1]/p
/html/body/div[@id='main']/div[@id='wrapper']/div[@id='inner']/div[@id='contentblock']/div/p[1]/strong
/html/body/div[@id='main']/div[@id='wrapper']/div[@id='inner']/div[@id='contentblock']/div/p[2]/span[2]/span/b
/html/body/div[@id='main']/div[@id='wrapper']/div[@id='inner']/div[@id='contentblock']/div/p[3]/span[2]/span/strong
/html/body/div[@id='main']/div[@id='wrapper']/div[@id='inner']/div[@id='marginalblock']/div[1]/h6

$ch=curl_init($url);
$res=curl_exec($ch);
$dom = new DOMDocument()
$dom->loadHTML($res);
$xpath=new DomXPath($dom);
$node= $xpath->query($xpath_query)->item(0);
echo $node->nodeValue;

I have Curl enabled here. That is no problem. And the Xpaths i should enter

in this line: $xpath_query=”/html/body/…”;

Question: should i enter all Xpaths that are mentioned above..from 1. to 3… and so forth How does this look like finally Can you help me here – i am very very new to php?

Look forward to hear from you!! Many many thanks for all and any help!

zero

Answer 1

try something like this

$url="http://...";
$xpath_query="/html/body/...";
$ch=curl_init($url);
$res=curl_exec($ch);
$dom = new DOMDocument()
$dom->loadHTML($res);
$xpath=new DomXPath($dom);
$node= $xpath->query($xpath_query)->item(0);
echo $node->nodeValue;

you just need to enable curl in your php.ini