Invoking screen-scraper through SOAP
Overview
This feature is only available to Enterprise editions of screen-scraper.
SOAP is a common protocol used for accessing web services based on XML. There are several libraries available in most popular programming languages which allow for the rapid development of SOAP clients.
SOAP API Specification
Many of the libraries available include some method of generating the code necessary to interact with a specific SOAP interface when given a WSDL file. We have also provided two examples using a SOAP client for screen-scraper: Java and .NET.
Method Summary
Logging Methods
string getLog(string filename) - Return the content of a given log file.
string getLog(string filename, boolean start, int lines) - Returns a portion of the content of a given log file.
string[] getLogNames() - Returns the names of all the files in the log directory of the remote server.
long getLogSize(string filename) - Return the size of the given logfile in bytes.
int removeLog(string filename) - Remove a log file from the log directory on the remote server.
Scraping Methods
string[] getCompletedScrapingSessions() - Returns the ID's of the completed scraping sessions.
string[] getDataRecord(string id, string var) - Get a data record for the given variable.
string[][] getDataSet(string id, string var) - Get the data set contained in a variable in a scraping session.
string[] getRunningScrapingSessions() - Return the ID's of the currently running scraping sessions.
string getScrapingSessionName(string id) - Returns the name of the scraping session where its key is id.
string[] getScrapingSessionNames() - Returns an array of names of scraping sessions which this server currently has.
long getScrapingSessionStartTime(string id) - Returns the starting time of a particular scraping session as a long.
string[] getScriptNames() - Returns the names of scripts in this server.
string getVariable(string id, string var) - Get the value of a certain variable in a scraping session.
string initializeScrapingSession(string name) - Initialize this scraping session to allow it to be scraped.
int isFinished(string id) - Returns if the session with key=id is finished.
int removeCompletedScrapingSession(string id) - Remove the scraping session given by id from the list of completed scraping sessions.
int removeScrapingSession(string name) - Remove a scraping session from the remote server and from it's database.
int removeScript(string name) - Remove a script from the remote server and it's database.
int scrape(string id) - Scrape the session given by this ID.
int setTimeout(string id, int minutes) - Set the time out minutes of a scraping session to scrape.
int setVariable(string id, string var, string value) - Set a variable within a scraping session.
int stopScrapingSession(string id) - Stop a scraping session in progress.
int update(string xml) - Update the remote server with an exported scraping session or script.
Server Methods
boolean isAcceptingConnections() - Returns the value to acceptingConnections, which is the value which dictates if the server is handling remote requests to scrape.
int setAcceptingConnections(boolean accepting) - Sets the value for acceptingConnections, which will either stop the server from handling requests for remote scrapes or allow them.
Method Detail
isAcceptingConnections
public static boolean isAcceptingConnections()
Returns the value to acceptingConnections, which is the value which dictates if the server is handling remote requests to scrape.
Returns: true if the server is will accept requests to scrape.
setAcceptingConnections
public static int setAcceptingConnections(boolean accepting)
Sets the value for acceptingConnections, which will either stop the server from handling requests for remote scrapes or allow them.
- accepting - value to change acceptingConnections to.
Returns: int which represents success or a specific error code.
getScrapingSessionNames
public string[] getScrapingSessionNames()
Returns an array of names of scraping sessions which this server currently has.
Returns: names of scraping sessions.
getScriptNames
public string[] getScriptNames()
Returns the names of scripts in this server.
Returns: names of scripts.
getRunningScrapingSessions
public string[] getRunningScrapingSessions()
Return the ID's of the currently running scraping sessions.
Returns: An array of Strings, which are the ID's.
getCompletedScrapingSessions
public string[] getCompletedScrapingSessions()
Returns the ID's of the completed scraping sessions. (Also, updates the list.)
Returns: the ID's of completed scraping sessions.
removeCompletedScrapingSession
public int removeCompletedScrapingSession(string id)
Remove the scraping session given by id from the list of completed scraping sessions.
- id - the ID of the scraping session to be removed.
Returns: an int representing success or a failure code.
isFinished
public int isFinished(string id)
Returns if the session with key=id is finished.
- id - the ID of the scraping session to check status.
Returns: an int representing finished (1), not finished (0) or error (0)
getScrapingSessionName
public string getScrapingSessionName(string id)
Returns the name of the scraping session where its key is id.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
Returns: the name of a scraping session, or "-1" if not found.
getScrapingSessionStartTime
public long getScrapingSessionStartTime(string id)
Returns the starting time of a particular scraping session as a long.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
Returns: the starting time of the scraping session, -1 if not yet started, or 0 if session not found.
initializeScrapingSession
public string initializeScrapingSession(string name)
Initialize this scraping session to allow it to be scraped.
- name - the name of the scraping session to initialize.
Returns: if success then the ID of this scraping session is returned, otherwise "-1".
scrape
public int scrape(string id)
Scrape the session given by this ID.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
Returns: 0 if an error occurred or 1 if successfully started.
setVariable
public int setVariable(string id, string var, string value)
Set a variable within a scraping session. Disallowed if acceptingConnections is false.
- id - the ID of a scraping session that has been initialized.
- var - the name of the variable to set.
- value - the value to set the variable to.
Returns: 1 if successfully set, 0 otherwise.
setTimeout
public int setTimeout(string id, int minutes)
Set the time out minutes of a scraping session to scrape.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
- minutes - the number of minutes before this session will timeout.
Returns: 1 if successful, 0 otherwise.
stopScrapingSession
public int stopScrapingSession(string id)
Stop a scraping session in progress.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
Returns: 1 if successful, 0 otherwise.
getVariable
public string getVariable(string id, string var)
Get the value of a certain variable in a scraping session. Note that currently only Strings, DataRecords, and DataSets can be accessed by this method.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
- var - the name of the variable to get the value of.
Returns: if this is a valid scraping session and the value of this variable is a string, then - the value is returned, "NULL" if the value is null, and "-1" otherwise.
getDataRecord
public string[] getDataRecord(string id, string var)
Get a data record for the given variable.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
- var - the name of a variable in this scraping session.
Returns: an array of String objectss like key=value or an empty array if an error happened or the variable is empty.
getDataSet
public string[][] getDataSet(string id, string var)
Get the data set contained in a variable in a scraping session.
- id - the ID of a scraping session.
- var - the name of a variable.
Returns: an array of data records as translated to arrays of String objects.
update
public int update(string xml)
Update the remote server with an exported scraping session or script. As a warning, if the version of screen-scraper this xml was exported from is different from the version of screen-scraper which is running as a server, then the update may not work.
- xml - the XML contained within an exported scraping session file.
Returns: 0 for failure, 1 for success.
removeScrapingSession
public int removeScrapingSession(string name)
Remove a scraping session from the remote server and from it's database.
- name - the name of the scraping session to be removed.
Returns: 0 for failure, 1 for success.
removeScript
public int removeScript(string name)
Remove a script from the remote server and it's database.
- name - the name of a script to e removed.
Returns: 0 for failure, 1 for success.
getLogNames
public string[] getLogNames()
Returns the names of all the files in the log directory of the remote server.
Returns: an array of the names of the log files, or null - if there is no log directory.
getLogSize
public long getLogSize(string filename)
Return the size of the given logfile in bytes.
- filename - the name of a file in the log directory.
Returns: a long representing the length in bytes of this file, or 0 if the file - does not exist or is empty.
getLog
public string getLog(string filename)
Return the content of a given log file.
- filename - the name of the file to get the contents of.
Returns: a String of the contents of the file, or "" if not possible.
getLog
public string getLog(string filename, boolean start, int lines)
Returns a portion of the content of a given log file.
- filename - the name of a log file.
- start - true to return content from the beginning of a file, false - to start counting lines from the end.
- lines - the number of lines from the log file to return.
Returns: a portion of the content of the given log file, or "" if anything goes wrong.
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