API

Overview

When writing scripts within screen-scraper, there are a number of objects and methods available to you. The Using Scripts page provides an overview of working with scripts, where this page provides details on specific objects and methods you'll use when scripting within screen-scraper.

The API documentation emphasizes Interpreted Java as Java is the language in which screen-scraper proper is written. That should not deter you from using whatever language you desire; all the methods are available in what ever language you choose.

The examples given here assume you're using Interpreted Java as the scripting language, but there should be very little difference in syntax if you decide to use another language. For example, if you're scripting in VBScript, you would simply omit the semi-colon at the end of each line, and for methods that don't return a value you would precede them with the VBScript keyword Call (either that, or omit the parentheses around the method parameters).

screen-scraper Object APIs

The screen-scraper, internal API has been divided into three groups for convenience.

1. Scraping Engine: Request, parse, manipulate, and store data according to user defined processes.
   • dataRecord
   • dataSet
   • log
   • session
   • scrapeableFile
   • RunnableScrapingSession (com.screenscraper.scraper)
   • sutil
2. Proxy Server: Manipulate browser-server interactions to filter, track, or otherwise control the experience of the user.
   • proxySession
   • request
   • response
3. Utilities: Helpful screen-scraper objects for processing and storing data.
   • CsvWriter (com.screenscraper.csv)
   • DataManagerFactory (com.screenscraper.datamanager)
   • ProxyServerPool (com.screenscraper.util)
   • RetryPolicy (com.screenscraper.util.retry)
   • SqlDataManager (com.screenscraper.datamanager)
   • XmlWriter (com.screenscraper.xml)

The two main groups are the scraping engine and the proxy server. The various objects available in these sections are exclusive to running screen-scraper for in one of these two ways. The one exception is the RunnableScrapingSession which has been grouped with the scraping engine simply because it is unlikely to be needed or used with the proxy server.

The utilities are available to scripts run in either the scraping engine or the proxy server and have since been separated from both. These represent classes that we have written to simplify some common tasks that are performed with retrieved data.

Java Libraries/Classes of Note

There are many additional classes that are available through Java Libraries that we did not create/modify that are especially worthy of note. Regardless of the language that you are using to program in screen-scraper you can have access to these.

• CSVReader (au.com.bytecode.opencsv)
• Apache Lang Library (org.apache.commons.lang3)

Other screen-scraper APIs

There are a few other APIs to be aware of. They are particular to dealing with screen-scraper in certain ways or certain versions. Make sure that you understand the implications of using these APIs before you start playing with them.

1. REST Interface: Issue commands to screen-scraper through GET requests to the server.
2. Anonymization REST Interface: Configure and run anonymous scrapes through the REST Interface.
3. Alpha Version: Methods and objects that have been introduced to screen-scraper since the last stable release.