Help programming .....
 

Anyone,

Anyone got a program that turns a form guide into a csv file which they are willing to share.

I assume most people have done it in excel using a webquery but I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel to get the data if someone has already done it.

Thanks.

Sounds like you know how to suck a web page into excel.

From there you just need to save it as a csv

Brownie,

Sucking in a web page is easy. Putting it into a format that is useful is the time consuming bit.

Thats the part I am after....

Thanks

Not sure what page you are putting in to excel but what i do is a copy paste to a text doc then i import it to excel comma delimited from there i have formulas to extract the useful information.

Shaun,

Thanks for the input.

I am looking for everything to automatic. Press a button and it gets the days form and stores it in a csv or database. Essentially I want to read it in using a webquery and then run a macro over the code. I just didn't want to have to right the macro to parse the code if I didn't have to as that is the time consuming part. Its time consuming due to the different types of data and length of data per race which need to be handled.

Thanks for your advice though.

wesmip,

this is what i do with web results....

I have sheet1 in an excel workbook, on this sheet i have a formula which is part of the url. I then have to manually fill down the date meeting id and number of races (not that time consuming - I do a week in about 10 minutes).

Now I run a macro which reads each url cell (part of a formula) and does a web query then is pasted to sheet2. On sheet3 are all the formulae which parse the data and keep the information in a format I can import direct to my database.

The macro then copies the DATA from sheet3 and pastes into a newly created workbook in a folder on the desktop.

It works well, but I have to interrogate the data, as the ************s keep changing the page format on a regular basis to curb such practices.

E.G. one week the date will look like this:

Date: 01/01/2006

The next week it looks like this:

Date
10/01/2006

Clearly they are trying to thwart canny operators ;)

Also when they have a mystery bet or some special promotion, it stuffs up the columns, so I just go back and fill it in manually.

I'd say all in all it takes a couple of hours to properly do a week's racing, but then I add extra stuff to it also,so it might not take as long for someone else.

I can't provide the actual sheets, as it took me a few months to build, and it has bugs which need to be ironed out from time to time.

My suggestion is to use my method and when you get stuck, record a partial macro and just edit it step by step.

I find using formulae to manipulate data the best way of quickly doing it without knowing too much advanced coding.

Thanks Chrome.

I'll give it a go....

Hi CP!
It is purely of academic interest? where do you get your form and results on the net?
Cheers

Hehe, I deliberately left out where the results come from for various reasons :D

They might not be too happy, BUT I change some data and get other parts of it from another site, so i stay on the right side of copyright laws.

I use virtual 5 start form, but manipulate that too!

I use the same but i use the free 3 start form