Should it create NEW scrapeable files?
I am not sure if I am doing it wrong or if this is the way that SS works:
To get new data from a web sites, I create a proxy session and a scraping session, and then created an extractor pattern. In the proxy session I selected a scaping session from the prompt "Generate scrapeable file in:" and selcted the scraping session and clicked "GO". Although I had previously created a scrapeable file that contains a extractor patttern, it did not generate data into that scrapeable file. It instead created a NEW scrapeable file. Is it supposed to do that?
Als, what if I have more than one scrapeable file created? Will it use the extractor patterns for all of them in order to create a single new scrapeable file that contains the data retrieved from the web site?
Gary, You normally would not
Gary,
You normally would not be creating extractor patterns prior to generating a scrapeable file. Scrapeable files generated from proxy transactions will not have extractor patterns in them. You have to create them from the content under the Last Response tab.
The flow should go something like this.
- Create a scraping session, let's call it "foo"
- Create a proxy session and call it "foo"
- Start the proxy running
- Assuming your browser is configured to relay through your proxy server, visit the site you want to scrape
- Click around the site for the pages you want to extract data from
- Stop the proxy
- Scan through the proxy HTTP transactions looking for the URLs to the pages you want to extract data from, select an item, choose "foo" from "Generate scrapeable file in" list and click Go
- It automatically moves you to that scrapeable file
- Create your extractor pattern(s) for that file
- Run your scraping session to verify that they match
- Repeat steps to generate more scrapeable files
You may consider reviewing the first one or two tutorials for a refresher.
http://community.screen-scraper.com/Tutorials_Menu
-Scott