Ok, I've been looking at the code for the Yahoo site and I have to say I have never seen so much stuff in the code for a site ever. You have to go through over 300K of code before you get to the stuff you want. This, even though on the web page, it looks like the data is just a little ways down the page. This means, as the scrub program stands now, it has to load about 350K of the site to get to that data. That, in turn means it takes about 30 seconds to scrub the data. And that means an additional 30 second delay from the time you issue the command to cause the script to fetch and read the data until you hear it being spoken. There is, however, a way around that but it will require that the scrubber program is a bit more clever about what it does.

What would happen is that the script would send out some data to a disk file before starting the HTMLScrub program. When the program starts it would look in this file to see if anything is there (or if it exists at all). If so, it would use that data to filter the incoming code from the web site such that it would only process a relatively small amount of it. Enough to contain the required stuff and not much more.

The script would send two things to the file. A string to be used for a starting point for the filter and a number which represents how much data to get after that point. In this way, the program would only have to scrub a small amount of data/code. It would be much faster than it is currently, even with the existing site being used now.

It would not take much of a change to the script. Just a few lines added to the part just before the call to the scrubber. So none of what you have done would have to be redone. If you send me what you have now, I can add it to it for you and send it back. I've been working with this file transfer thing in another project so I already have tested code ready to go for it.

Basically it would not take much to add, yet give the scrubber a large speed boost, effectively causing it to take about the same brief amount of time to do it's thing regardless of the size of the web site file. The new executable required would also be fully compatible with your script as it stands now, so no other changes would be needed.

BTW, on an unrelated topic, I can make the scrubber program come up in minimized state so you would not see it at all while it is doing it's thing if you like.

Try this site. I think it may not be so much stuff to sift through.

http://biz.yahoo.com/mu/update.html.

Will send the script in another message.

Here is my script I'm using. eventually will use the quotedate and quotetime variables. But not ready yet.stockscript.zip

If you see any efficiencies that can be added or fixed within the script feel free to do so.

Thanks for all your help would've never gotten this far without your assistance.

also, I am going to open another request for help. It has to do with the calendar one that I opened earlier.

take a look at this site. http://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

I would like to take this file, have the computer scan the dates, compare it to the current date, if within a week, start sending reminders verbally up until the date has past, then it can forget about it.

I don't care about times, just dates. Is it possible to scan the file and pull the information, date, and read the status/info text?

opening another request, since it is different. also a different/better website.

let me know your thoughts. I think we could use a lot of what we've done already. the only part missing I think is the date comparison/look up.

WBS00001 - I want to thank you for all your help. I couldn't have ever gotten this far without your assistance. I know that you have spent a lot of time helping me out. I believe your HTMLSCRUB file should be able to be used by many other users who didn't know how to get past all the bad characters in those HTML files. I am not sure if you had a chance to look at the modified script I sent you, but if you did, did you see anything that I should change to make it better?

I am still trying to study and learn the script you provided for searching through the modified HTML file and finding the data that is useful. It is confusing but will keep trying.

At this point, please forget my other requests. I really do appreciate and understand the time you devoted to helping me. I do believe others will benefit from your work.

Thanks again.

dbeard.

You're very welcome. Glad to help, really. Besides, I find what you're trying to do interesting. While figuring out how to do these things I learn stuff too. Useful stuff. "Scraping" things off web pages (which is what this technique is often called) can be applied to a lot of things.

I have given your code a cursory once over and it appears you are learning well. What you have written shows that you are catching on to what it is going on in the script and the overall concept of getting the data you want. When I get the chance I'll look it over in more detail, but it seems fine for now.

Mostly I'm modifying the scrub program such that it can handle pretty much any size web page. It will be compatible with what you have now concerning the Marketwatch site so there should be no problem there. It will, however be much faster in the scrubbing process for all sites. The code in the script to make this happen will be minimal with just few lines added to the beginning. A few lines added to the HTMLScrub.ini file as well, but I will add them for the current sites before I send it and the new executable to you. Of course I will explain all that in a post when I upload the new files.

Anyway, once this is done and working on your end I'll be glad to help you with the other things you want to do concerning the time and date things.The requests you made have inspired me to look into making a script for doing those sorts of functions. It would be something that would be called with Command Control functions for ease of use. I feel sure it would be helpful to many. Myself included.

Look forward to trying out the modified Scrub program. How do you make that Scrub program? I know it is done outsize of ARC.