html parsing of cricinfo scorecards

Question

Aim

I am looking to scrape 20/20 cricket scorecard data from the Cricinfo website, ideally into CSV form for data analysis in Excel

As an example the current Australian Big Bash 2011/12 scorecards are available from

• Game 1: http://www.espncricinfo.com/big-bash-league-2011/engine/match/524915.html
• Last Game: http://www.espncricinfo.com/big-bash-league-2011/engine/match/524935.html

Background

I am proficient in using VBA (either automating IE or using XMLHTTP and then using regular expressions) to scrape data from websites, ie Extract values from HTML TD and Tr

In that same question a comment was posted suggesting html parsing - which I hadn't come accross before - so I have taken a look at questions such as RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags

Query

While I could write a regex to parse the cricket data below I would like advice as to how I could efficiently retrieve these results with html parsing.

Please bear in mind that my preference is a repeatable CSV format containing:

• the date/name of the match
• Team 1 name
• the output should dump up to 11 records for Team 1 (blank records where players haven't batted, ie "Did Not Bat")
• Team 2 name
• the output should dump up to 11 records for Team 2 (blank records where players haven't batted)

Nirvana for me would be a solution that I could deploy using VBA or VBscript so I could fully automate my analysis, but I presume I will have to use a separate tool for the html parse.

Sample Site links and Data to be Extracted

Answer 1

There are 2 techniques that I use for "VBA". I will describe them 1 by one.

1) Using FireFox / Firebug Addon / Fiddler

2) Using Excel's inbuilt facility to get data from the web

Since this post will be read by many so I will even cover the obvious. Please feel free to skip whatever part you know

---

1) Using FireFox / Firebug Addon / Fiddler

---

FireFox : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox Free download (http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/)

Firebug Addon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebug_%28software%29 Free download (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firebug/)

Fiddler : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddler_%28software%29 Free download (http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/)

Once you have installed Firefox, install the Firebug Addon. The Firebug Addon lets you inspect the different elements in a webpage. For example if you want to know the name of a button, simply right click on it and click on "Inspect Element with Firebug" and it will give you all the details that you will need for that button.

Another example would be finding the name of a table on a website which has the data that you need scrapped.

I use Fiddler only when I am using XMLHTTP. It helps me to see the exact info being passed when you click on a button. Because of the increase in the number of BOTS which scrape the sites, most sites now, to prevent automatic scrapping, capture your mouse coordinates and pass that information and fiddler actually helps you in debugging that info that is being passed. I will not get into much details here about it as this info can be used maliciously.

Now let's take a simple example on how to scrape the URL posted in your question

http://www.espncricinfo.com/big-bash-league-2011/engine/match/524915.html

First let's find the name of the table which has that info. Simply right click on the table and click on "Inspect Element with Firebug" and it will give you the below snapshot.

So now we know that our data is stored in a table called "inningsBat1" If we can extract the contents of that table to an Excel file then we can definitely work with the data to do our analysis. Here is sample code which will dump that table in Sheet1

Before we proceed, I would recommend, closing all Excel and starting a fresh instance.

Launch VBA and insert a Userform. Place a command button and a webcrowser control. Your Userform might look like this

Paste this code in the Userform code area

Option Explicit  '~~> Set Reference to Microsoft HTML Object Library  Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)  Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()     Dim URL As String     Dim oSheet As Worksheet      Set oSheet = Sheets("Sheet1")      URL = "http://www.espncricinfo.com/big-bash-league-2011/engine/match/524915.html"      PopulateDataSheets oSheet, URL      MsgBox "Data Scrapped. Please check " & oSheet.Name End Sub  Public Sub PopulateDataSheets(wsk As Worksheet, URL As String)     Dim tbl As HTMLTable     Dim tr As HTMLTableRow     Dim insertRow As Long, Row As Long, col As Long      On Error GoTo whoa      WebBrowser1.navigate URL      WaitForWBReady      Set tbl = WebBrowser1.Document.getElementById("inningsBat1")      With wsk         .Cells.Clear          insertRow = 0         For Row = 0 To tbl.Rows.Length - 1             Set tr = tbl.Rows(Row)             If Trim(tr.innerText) <> "" Then                 If tr.Cells.Length > 2 Then                     If tr.Cells(1).innerText <> "Total" Then                         insertRow = insertRow + 1                         For col = 0 To tr.Cells.Length - 1                             .Cells(insertRow, col + 1) = tr.Cells(col).innerText                         Next                     End If                 End If             End If         Next     End With whoa:     Unload Me End Sub  Private Sub Wait(ByVal nSec As Long)     nSec = nSec + Timer     While Timer < nSec        DoEvents         Sleep 100     Wend End Sub  Private Sub WaitForWBReady()     Wait 1     While WebBrowser1.ReadyState <> 4         Wait 3     Wend End Sub 

Now run your Userform and click on the Command button. You will notice that the data is dumped in Sheet1. See snapshot

Similarly you can scrape other info as well.

---

2) Using Excel's inbuilt facility to get data from the web

---

I believe you are using Excel 2007 so I will take that as an example to scrape the above mentioned link.

Navigate to Sheet2. Now navigate to Data Tab and click on the button "From Web" on the extreme right. See snapshot.

Enter the url in the "New Web Query Window" and click on "Go"

Once the page is uploaded, select the relevant table that you want to import by clicking on the small arrow as shown in the snapshot. Once done, click on "Import"

Excel will then ask you where you want the data to be imported. Select the relevant cell and click on OK. And you are done! The data will be imported to the cell which you specified.

If you wish you can record a macro and automate this as well :)

Here is the macro that I recorded.

Sub Macro1()     With ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add(Connection:= _     "URL;http://www.espncricinfo.com/big-bash-league-2011/engine/match/524915.html" _     , Destination:=Range("$A$1"))         .Name = "524915"         .FieldNames = True         .RowNumbers = False         .FillAdjacentFormulas = False         .PreserveFormatting = True         .RefreshOnFileOpen = False         .BackgroundQuery = True         .RefreshStyle = xlInsertDeleteCells         .SavePassword = False         .SaveData = True         .AdjustColumnWidth = True         .RefreshPeriod = 0         .WebSelectionType = xlSpecifiedTables         .WebFormatting = xlWebFormattingNone         .WebTables = """inningsBat1"""         .WebPreFormattedTextToColumns = True         .WebConsecutiveDelimitersAsOne = True         .WebSingleBlockTextImport = False         .WebDisableDateRecognition = False         .WebDisableRedirections = False         .Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False     End With End Sub 

---

Hope this helps. Let me know if you still have some queries.

Sid