retrieving live information from other sites

[xeeb]

is it possible to retrieve live data (maybe an xml file) from a website to use on your own website?

,lacking in knowledge of new technology

[johnsquibb]

absolutely! There is a lot of material out there on the subject, so expect to spend some time learning some new tricks.

there are several ways to go about doing it. For a simple introduction to PHP and XML check out http://www.kirupa.com/developer/php/php5_simpleXML.htm

In that example, just replace the path of file_get_contents with the path to the remote XML file you want to use.

for example:

<?php
//Since we're already using PHP5, why don't we exploit their easy to use file_get_contents() command?
$xmlFileData = file_get_contents("http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/operaStuff/userjs/samplexml.xml");
//Here's our Simple XML parser!
$xmlData = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlFileData);
//And here's the output.
print_r($xmlData);

?>

Of course you can parse XML entirely without PHP if you are interested in learning / already know XSL (more on this at w3.org: http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/)

if you just want to include content from other sites (i.e. an entire webpage) you can just do something like:

<?php
//get google.com
$fileData = file_get_contents("http://google.com");

//do something with fileData here

echo $fileData;

?>

then you can try and hack up the code however you want...

[xeeb]

thanks for the quick reply.

[xeeb]

i'm trying to retrieve some "live" movie times to add on my website, but it's all in flash.
is there a way to get around that? do you know how movie searches are accomplished?
do they contact the actual headquarters for access to parts of the database or do they
obtain info by parsing their site?

,learning slowly

[johnsquibb]

I'm not sure which site you mean is in flash...your site or the site you are trying to get the show times from? If you are trying to integrate dynamic content into your flash, then you might want to check out articles regarding XML in Flash, such as this one. There are a lot more out there, so poke around.

I'm not certain how movie times are aggregated, but if you google a bit with the terms 'movie times rss' or 'movie times xml' etc., you should be able to uncover some details.

[xeeb]

this is the website that i'm trying to obtain movie information from:
www.cgv.co.kr

the website is all in flash

is it possible to obtain information from websites like this one if they do not provide
RSS Feed?

[Walkere]

is it possible to obtain information from websites like this one if they do not provide RSS Feed?

I don't think so. Flash does a good job of wrapping up all the information so that you can't easily manipulate or edit it.

Is there another site for Korean showtimes (like Fandango in the US)? Unless they're printed in HTML or XML, you're not going to be able to extract them from a site and re-use them.

As for sites that get the info directly from the movie theaters, they most likely have access to a central database. Sites with lots of info (like Amazon.com) give out read-access to parts of their database, so that developers can integrate the information into their site.

I'd assume there's some kind of high-level database for cinemas, and that's where sites like Fandango, Enjoytheshow, etc. get the movie times.

- Walkere