[SGVLUG] Polling Web Sites

[juanslayton at dslextreme.com]

>Robert Leyva
>
> I would suggest using something like wget (www.gnu.org/software/wget)
>
> Almost all web page actions end up being a URL request with arguments, say
> http://www.google.com/jobs/search?status=latest
>
> Once you know what the button is actually doing, you can then put that URL
> into wget, then run a shell script that goes to that URL, fetches the
> text, and then you can do processing on it, (grep?), to see if there are
> things of interest to you.
>
> Just my two cents.

Robert
     Good, I got you on the LUG list this time.
     I'm not adept at shell scripts, but wrote a little C routine that
uses 'system' to periodically run 'wget.'  This much is working just
fine; it pulls in the page that shows newly posted vacancies.  I
don't actually have to do any processing, I know that the page will
only change if there is a new post.  The wget manual says that there
is a way to tell if a page has changed; my immediate next step is to
find out how that works.  I suppose it's a command line option.
     Anyway, all I need to do is produce an audio alarm whenever the page
changes; then I'll know to check the screen and see what's new.
John
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