Scrape HTML table data and create XML doc

Question

I need to scrape some website data from a table on a website and create an XML document that will be used by an app.

The table looks like this:

<table id="results" class="results">
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th scope="col" class="resRoute">Route</th>
                <th scope="col" class="resDir">To</th>
                <th scope="col" class="resDue sorted">Time</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td class="resRoute">263</td>
                <td class="resDir">Route Name</td>
                <td class="resDue">1 min</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td class="resRoute">17</td>
                <td class="resDir">Route Name</td>
                <td class="resDue">2 min</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>

And I would like to create an XML feed that looks like this:

<train>
    <route>263</route>
    <direction>Route Name</direction>
    <due>2 Min</due>
</train>
<train>
    <route>17</route>
    <direction>Route Name</direction>
    <due>12 Min</due>
</train>

tom redfern · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-04 14:32:37Z

2

Run it through a XSLT transform:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:for-each select="table/tbody/tr">
      <train>
        <route><xsl:value-of select="td[@class='resRoute']" /></route>
        <direction><xsl:value-of select="td[@class='resDir']" /></direction>
        <due><xsl:value-of select="td[@class='resDue']" /></due>
      </train> 
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

answered Sep 4, 2011 at 14:32

tom redfern

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Comments

Phil Sturgeon · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-04 14:32:19Z

Hack hackedy hack hack hack!

        $html = '<table id="results" class="results">
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th scope="col" class="resRoute">Route</th>
                    <th scope="col" class="resDir">To</th>
                    <th scope="col" class="resDue sorted">Time</th>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td class="resRoute">263</td>
                    <td class="resDir">Route Name</td>
                    <td class="resDue">1 min</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td class="resRoute">17</td>
                    <td class="resDir">Route Name</td>
                    <td class="resDue">2 min</td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    ';

    $body = explode('<tbody>', $html);

    $xml = simplexml_load_string("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?><xml />");

    $rows = array();
    foreach (array_slice(explode('<tr>', end($body)), 1) as $row)
    {
        preg_match('/resRoute">([0-9]+)<\/td>/', $row, $ids);
        preg_match('/resDir">([^<]+)<\/td>/', $row, $dir);
        preg_match('/resDue">([^<]+)<\/td>/', $row, $due);

        $node = $xml->addChild('train');

        $node->addChild('route', $ids[1]);
        $node->addChild('direction', $dir[1]);
        $node->addChild('due', $due[1]);
    }

    header('Content-Type: text/xml');
    echo $xml->asXML();

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