Reading Data from a Web page

Hi all,
I am trying to read data directly from a web page using java. The Client

will not give access to their data base but will post data on their web
page. Is there a way for me to be able to use java servlets to read data

from a web page without connecting to the client database. I know that
when making a servlet request this is usually to a server, which then
can connect to a database using JDBC.
How ever could it be possible to run request on a web page, (seems an
strange questions!) but if the client will not let us access the data
from a database then we can only use the web page.

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Jawahar

Hi


What do you want to do on the Client Database ?

Does the service need to update client database, server database or both
?

Generally Client Side Access to Database Can be Implemented by an ActiveX
Control or an Applet and from there data can be passed on to Servlets or
Vice Versa

Regards

Raj


Jawahar Rajan <Jawahar.Rajan@rtp.ppdi.com> wrote:
>Hi all,
>I am trying to read data directly from a web page using java. The Client
>
>will not give access to their data base but will post data on their web
>page. Is there a way for me to be able to use java servlets to read data
>
>from a web page without connecting to the client database. I know that
>when making a servlet request this is usually to a server, which then
>can connect to a database using JDBC.
>How ever could it be possible to run request on a web page, (seems an
>strange questions!) but if the client will not let us access the data
>from a database then we can only use the web page.
>
>Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.
>Thanks
>Jawahar
>
>
>

Raj
Thanks for your reply
We are trying to read values (whole sale prices for various commodities)
directly from a Web page. The Web page is updated by a Consumer group and
the data is available to the public.
What we need to do, is get the data from the web page and then use it for our
process.
The Consumer group will not give us the data directly or allow us to access
their Database!
(Because they prefer to post the data for the public to see). We are not
allowed to run a request to the Consumer Group database, hence we can only
use what is displayed on the web page.
Hence My question, Is it possible to read data from a web page using Servlets
or an Applet
The Data is displayed in Columns as text or sometimes in text boxes, at
present we have our data entry operator to manually read the values and then
use them in our process. We are looking for a way to automatically read the
values (Essentially Scan the web page!)

Thanks Again
Jawahar



Rajkamal Gopinath wrote:

> Hi
>
> What do you want to do on the Client Database ?
>
> Does the service need to update client database, server database or both
> ?
>
> Generally Client Side Access to Database Can be Implemented by an ActiveX
> Control or an Applet and from there data can be passed on to Servlets or
> Vice Versa
>
> Regards
>
> Raj
>
> Jawahar Rajan <Jawahar.Rajan@rtp.ppdi.com> wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >I am trying to read data directly from a web page using java. The Client
> >
> >will not give access to their data base but will post data on their web
> >page. Is there a way for me to be able to use java servlets to read data
> >
> >from a web page without connecting to the client database. I know that
> >when making a servlet request this is usually to a server, which then
> >can connect to a database using JDBC.
> >How ever could it be possible to run request on a web page, (seems an
> >strange questions!) but if the client will not let us access the data
> >from a database then we can only use the web page.
> >
> >Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.
> >Thanks
> >Jawahar
> >
> >
> >

Use something like this, using classes from the java.net package:

URL = new URL("http://your.client/theinfo.html");
URLConnection con = url.openConnection();
InputStream is = con.getInputStream();

and read the HTML source for that web page from the InputStream. You'll
have to write code to parse through that HTML and pick out the data you are
interested in.

PC2

"Jawahar Rajan" <Jawahar.Rajan@rtp.ppdi.com> wrote in message
news:3B290DEC.9A9EE56C@rtp.ppdi.com...
> Hi all,
> I am trying to read data directly from a web page using java. The Client
>
> will not give access to their data base but will post data on their web
> page. Is there a way for me to be able to use java servlets to read data
>
> from a web page without connecting to the client database. I know that
> when making a servlet request this is usually to a server, which then
> can connect to a database using JDBC.
> How ever could it be possible to run request on a web page, (seems an
> strange questions!) but if the client will not let us access the data
> from a database then we can only use the web page.
>
> Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.
> Thanks
> Jawahar
>
>
>