hi there - we have been using linux here for several months. we are running suse pro 9.1 and we have a need for a certain program so i am basically looking for someone that can make a program for me.

i will go to www.realpages.com and choose a listing (ie, restaurants in a certain area) and i need to copy them all and turn them into a delimited text file. the program needs to convert the tables they use on the site into commas and specify each line to its meaning (biz name, address, phone number...)

thats the basics....is anyone out there able to help me??? PLEASE!!! at least point me in a good direction. i would really like to be able to use this on my linux box, but i do have a windows box as well...please advise!
Annette

automagically or semi manually?
would be easy to knock up a script where you
save the page and run it through.

automagically is also possible.

but, do they know you are doing this?
Is it legal?

regards, billy

i dont see why it wouldnt be legal - its basically just copying the info into a text file so i can call and obtain even more info. I do sales and its how i get leads for business. its just easier to have it in a text file (execl) than using the yellow pages book and doing it that way.

what is automagically? i would love to have a program that would just go to the site and do it all by itself without me having to copy page by page. otherwise, i would go to each listing and copy each page.

can u help?

Use PHP ... it's good for this sort of thing.

To find an example of how to use PHP to grab information from a website, just google for a very basic one page weather php script out there on the internet.

What you need to do is tell PHP to grab the webpage and then use preg_replace to strip out all the fluf that you don't need. This is what some of the very basic weather scripts do. Then you'll need to arrange the data to suit your needs.

ok...great, HOW do i do this? i would really ned step by step directions for this. is anyone available online for a tutorial?? we can IM
tia
annette