extract url from html body

[greenfields]

I have exported the html contents of a webviewer as text to a text field in another layout.

I am trying to write a script to go through the text and extract urls from within it.

All urls in the text begin http and the string is contained within " "

I am running a looping script that goes to the first word, if its first 4 characters are http (Left ( $thisword ; 4 ) = "http") then i set the current word plus the next 20 to another variable which is exported to another field.

The current word then increments by +1 and stops when current word = last word.

This is ugly! I wonder if anyone can help me get the exact text of the url contained in the " " separators.

Any help much appreciated!

Basically, how do i exit a loop if the current word is followed by a " separator....

Edited January 27, 2009 by Guest

[comment]

Why don't you search for the n-th occurence of "http", extract from there till the first following quote, then bump n up by 1.

[greenfields]

sorry, I've never used these functions, would you mind elaborating?

An example would be superb!

Thanks for the input....

[comment]

Roughly:

Loop

Set Variable [ $i ; $i + 1 ]

Exit Loop If [ $i > PatternCount ( text ; "http" ) ]

SetVariable [ $url ; <> ]

Peform Script [ New URL Record ; parameter: $url ]

End Loop

and the <> would be:

Let ( [

start = Position ( text ; "http" ; 1 ; $i ) ;

end = Position ( text ; """ ; start ; 1 )

] ;

Middle ( text ; start ; end - start )

)

[PatrickMc]

To extract URLs from a html, asp, php, text, etc. documents, there is a good script posted at http://www.biterscripting.com/SS_URLs.html .

To use, do the following. (With high speed internet, this entire process, including installation, should take no more than a couple of minutes.)

1. Download and install biterscripting at http://www.biterscripting.com .

2. Start biterscripting and enter the following command .

script "http://www.biterscripting.com/Download/SS_AllSamples.txt"

(biterscripting can execute scripts directly from a web site)



3. Now you are ready to use the SS_URLs script to extract URLs. This is done with the following command.

script "C:/Scripts/SS_URLs.txt" URL("http://....")

The above will extract URLs referenced in that web page. OR,

script "C:/Scripts/SS_URLs.txt" URL("C:/....")

The above will extract URLs referenced in that local file.

Hope this helps.

Patrick

[Fenton]

Yet another AppleScript solution, uses Perl

Extract_URLs_http_from_URL.scpt.zip