need software / tool recomendations

leicaphotos · #1 (**permalink**) 05-21-08, 16:17

Here's the issue:

I've got two gig of short html files where the code is comparable to the following:

Code:

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>CARROT CAKE<TITLE>
</HEAD
CARROT CAKE<br>
<hr>
4 eggs<br>
2 c. sugar<br>
3 small jars strained carrots<br>
(baby food)<br>
1 small jar strained pineapple<br>
(baby food)<br>
1 c. chopped nuts<br>
1 c. raisins<br>
1 1/2 c. oil<br>
2 c. flour<br>
2 tsp. baking soda<br>
1 tsp. salt<br>
2 tsp. cinnamon<br>
1 tsp. vanilla<br>
<br>Beat the eggs, sugar, strained carrots, strained pineap-                 <br>
ple  (mashed),  nuts,  raisins and oil.  After which add flour,<br>
baking  soda,  salt,  cinnamon  and vanilla.  Mix all together.<br>
Place in pan.  Bake for 50 to 60 minutes at 350 degrees.<br>

</HTML>

Now, I am looking for an application or tool that will assist with migrating all of this into a database - or xml -- any particular database is fine --- I'll be adding custom fields to the database after the data is in place.

any suggestions to aid in a rapid deployment are appreciated.

current system is in asp index server on a windows box ---

Any help / guidance is appreciated

healdem · #2 (**permalink**) 05-21-08, 17:01

any language will do that
you could try PHP (Id go PHP-command line/exe rather than web server)

the main issue I can see would be how you insert the data into the DB and maintain data integrity

leicaphotos · #3 (**permalink**) 05-22-08, 14:42

see, the data is currently searched by full text indexing -- I'm looking to capture the title as one field and the rest of the recipe as the next field while stipping all html except the br tags

any ideas on a good automated tool that will do this? or an easy script --- php is not an option

please help

Pat Phelan · #4 (**permalink**) 05-22-08, 15:08

How about Perl then? You wouldn't need to install either PHP or Perl on the server itself if that is the problem, either of them could be installed on any client machine that could read the files.

-PatP

mike_bike_kite · #5 (**permalink**) 05-23-08, 04:12

Quote:

Php is not an option

PHP and PERL would both work well and they're not difficult to learn - is there a reason they aren't an option? Gawk would also work but you're less likely to know that. Are there any languages you can program in? Will your PC be the web server or are you going to move to a dedicated UNIX server?

Quote:

any particular database is fine

If you're happy with any database then you could just have one table with one field and then just insert each recipe - it wouldn't be pretty but you could then use SQL to extract the data into a more normalised form - that's assuming you know SQL. Of course if you're serious about any database then you're welcome to have the one I currently have to work with - it does risk assessment for banks but you might be able to adjust it somehow.

Do you have a recipe web site? can we see it? I love food.

Mike

carlocurino · #6 (**permalink**) 05-25-08, 18:54

Hi,
try to play with http://www.dapper.net/ is a semi-automatic wrapper generator, which can be used to isolate the various portions of a web-page and to output XML or other formats.

I did something similar wrapping descriptions of WINEs and it worked fine.

good luck
Carlo

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