Project Detail
Data collection program
Data collection program is project number 364777
posted at Freelancer.com. Click here to post your own project.
Bid Count: 45
Average Bid:
$ 122
01/09/2009 at 20:52 EST
Project Creator:
andrew4gaf
Employer Rating: 
(1 reviews)
Description
I have a need to harvest data from a web site on a weekly basis and need a program to do the work. I currently do it with a program I wrote but I need something more robust in order to run this more often.The project is simple: download some html files and then extract the data in them and put them in a standard delimited ASCII file.
The program will simply query a web site to get the html pages that are available. There are about 100 per calendar date and the need is to be able to download the files starting with the current date and going to an end date. This means downloading between 35,000 and 100,000 html files each time the program runs.
The program should begin by getting the html files and storing them in a temporary folder.
The second step of the process is to parse the html files and extract the data contained in them. The HTML files keep the same format and are easy to extract as they are simple lists. ALL fields must be extracted.
The list have header information, so the header information must be repeated on each record of data created to ensure that the information stays together. For example, it will give the name and then a list of all the clients for that name.
The extracted data must be saved in a standard ASCII file format where each field is delimited by a character to be configurable in the program (example a tab). I will then take this data and import it into a database system for processing.
I do not need a program with a fancy user interface. It needs to be simple and functional. It must work on Windows XP Pro.
Attached is a ZIP file containing samples of the html files as well as the web site information.
The provider must submit a final program in executable format with all necessary files, and also the source code. He must have tested the program and must submit the results for one run between two dates, of a year time period (example: the provider can run the program on february 1st 2009 and put the end date february 1st 2010. The data collected must be submited to show the program works.).
If the provider does a good job on this, there are several other similar projects available for him. In the future when the format of these html files changes, I will ask the provider to modify the program.
This is a simple project but please only bid if you have done this type of work before and are sure you can deliver the work. I do not want to waste your time or mine. If you have questions please message me before you bid.
Thank you
Additional information submitted:
01/02/2009 at 21:43 EST:
Question asked: why keep the html files, why not just parse them and create the resulting output file.
Answer: The HTML files are kept in a temporary directory because they must be saved as backups in case the data is damaged in the future and needs to be re-parsed.
01/02/2009 at 22:02 EST:
Payment for this project will be made via escrow only.
01/03/2009 at 13:02 EST:
The final output should be in ONE delimited ASCII text file. All fields from all html files that are downloaded should be included on each record. The variation between the 3 types of html files in this project are minor so each record line may have about 30 fields, with some used or unused. The field is simply left blank if it is unused.
The program is to be run manually. It will not be run by MS Scheduler or other automated tool. No fancy automated feature is necessary, just the ability to specify a date range, specify the delimiter charachter, specify an output file path and name, and start and stop buttons. The program should also have a small option to play a sound file when the process is done, and another option to shutdown the computer after the process is done.
01/04/2009 at 22:57 EST:
"We'll charge you $30 per 200 entries"
Bids with comments like this are unprofessional and will be ignored. This defeats the purpose of using GAF.
Additional files submitted:
project-info.zip
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