Info scraper

[Wingens]

Hi,

I don't know if it is possible but I am creating a little program to catalog my game collection.

It would be awesome if my program could get the boxcover, developer info and game info with the titles I add.

Does anyone know how to get me started?

[JLogan3o13]

@Wingens welcome to the forum. Where would you be pulling this information from? Are you looking to manually input the data, and are just looking for a repository (database) to house it? Or are you looking to input a title and have the script search for the boxcover, developer info, etc. online? The more information you can give us, the better equipped we are to assist.

[Wingens]

My thought was, i put in a title and choose from a pulldown box the console and it gathers the boxcover and intel from the world wide web.

Only problem is i have no idea how to do such a thing.

[JLogan3o13]

You could use InetGet to pull the files (see below). The problem with that approach is you're going to need to the URL for the files.

#include <InetConstants.au3>
$sUrl = "http://vgboxart.com/boxes/PSX/47732-final-fantasy-vii.png"
Local $boxCover = InetGet($sUrl, @DesktopDir & "\MyBoxCover.jpg", Default, $INET_DOWNLOADWAIT)

 

[Wingens]

It is a start, the real problem is finding the right url on the sites...

[InunoTaishou]

There's a few scrapers out there like this already for Emulation Station. It would be a good start. There might be a pattern for the urls or you might have to open up an IE connection to fill out a search and go through the search results for the game that fits. Grab the url from the search and inet get the webpage.

https://github.com/sselph/scraper (Written in go, idk what language go is)

https://github.com/thadmiller/ES-scraper (Written in python)

[Wingens]

Going to look in to the scrapper scripts found. thank you.

[Robjong]

Hi,

I would suggest also looking into the _IE* functions to retrieve data. 
If you are going the InetGet route and feel adventurous maybe take a look at StringRegExp.

What kind of games are you talking about? Tabletop/PC/Console? Old/New?

[Wingens]

I am talking about console games. From NES 2 PS3 at the moment nothing newer.