Adding more books to SBR Lines feed generator

Dave · 07-09-06, 02:08 AM

we are hoping to add an additional 10 books to sbrlines and the webmaster tool. we are currently speaking withe the next books in line with our rating guide. we hope to have this available by mid to late Aug.

rm18 · 07-09-06, 02:16 AM

will mansion ever be on the lines? they are a sponsor but still not included

CA_Bettor06 · 07-09-06, 02:44 AM

Originally posted by Dave

we are hoping to add an additional 10 books to sbrlines and the webmaster tool. we are currently speaking withe the next books in line with our rating guide. we hope to have this available by mid to late Aug.

That's great news Dave. Can you let me know which books you're adding? I've been looking for a way to download lines from certain books to analyze in my own database. Will your feed generator allow your users to query the data using XML? I'm looking for an automated way to import the data.

Also, for the books that don't feed SBRLines directly, couldn't you parse the HTML from their website to get the lines or is that too technically difficult?

Ganchrow · 07-09-06, 03:43 AM

Originally posted by CA_Bettor06

Also, for the books that don't feed SBRLines directly, couldn't you parse the HTML from their website to get the lines or is that too technically difficult?

I suspect either that books with which SBR does not have an agreement in place would object to SBR displaying their lines without permission and/or (and I realize that these two explanations are a bit contradictory) SBR would object to providing what amounted to free advertising.

As far as automatically scraping a book's HTML lines, I know from experience it's quite straightforward to accomplish using scripting languages such as Perl, Python, or PHP (and I assume fairly simple with VB or C# as well). PM me if you want some ideas on how to proceed with that.

Dave · 07-09-06, 11:39 AM

Originally posted by CA_Bettor06

That's great news Dave. Can you let me know which books you're adding? I've been looking for a way to download lines from certain books to analyze in my own database. Will your feed generator allow your users to query the data using XML? I'm looking for an automated way to import the data.

Also, for the books that don't feed SBRLines directly, couldn't you parse the HTML from their website to get the lines or is that too technically difficult?

I am sorry but I really do not know at this time what books will be added. That would be a question for our marketing department. I can tell you that if a book does not provide us with a minimal xml file then we will not be listing their lines. We try to provide the quickets line changes possible and thats not something we are able to do by scraping HTML. I can also tell you that we have no plans to allow users to access our xml feeds. I am sure that you may find that more and more books are open to giving away their xml feeds to just about anyone who asks.

John - Sean and I are still working on Mansion, it has been over 1 year now that they have told us they should have an xml available. We will continue to stay on top of them until they give it to us.

RickySteve · 07-09-06, 07:09 PM

I would like to have the capability to remove books from the display. There are several that I can't/don't play at which just clutter up the page.