Skip to content.

TADA Contents

Find topic


Search text

Web tools

Help

Tools

       Analysis Tool Bar  +
Main > Projects > TAPoRware > TAPoRwareHTMLDateFinder

Find Dates

See http://taporware.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/htmlTools/datefinder.shtml

Description

This tool extracts dates from an HTML document. Dates can be limited to all dates, years, months, weeks, seasons, North American holidays or user defined dates (e.g. specific month(s), week(s), season(s), holiday(s)).

Predefined Parameter Values in Tool Bar

  • Source: the page the user is currently in.
  • Element: body or set by site owner
  • Date type: all dates, including years, months, weeks, seasons, and North America's statutory holidays
  • Display format: HTML

Pseudocode

  • Obtain HTML string by URL or from user's local disk
  • Obtain text contained by user specified tags
  • Use pattern match to get the sentences containing the user specified date (all date, years, months, weeks etc.)
  • Generate html output to display

Ways of Using

  • Enter a valid URL in the URL field or enter a local upload html text
  • Enter a valid html tag or tag list separated by comma, default is "body"
  • Select a date format or want to investigate. If you select "user date", you have to enter the date in the related text field.
  • Select output format (current, only html format is supported)
  • If you want the results displayed in the same window with taporware interface, uncheck the check box - "Open results in new window"
  • Finally, click the "Submit" button

CGI Interface

If you want to use this tool from your web site, here is the CGI Interface: (Note: If you want to upload local html text to the tool, you need to use attribute name/value pair: enctype="multipart/form-data" within the form tag)

Here are the parameters:

Parameter Name Parameter Value Control Type Default Description
source url/local radio button url Let user select input text (either a url or upload local html text)
htmlurl   text   A Valid URL that the pointed document should be an html text
localFile   file   The path to your local html text file
tagword   text body Valid html element (tag) name or multiple html element name separated by comma
date all/year/month/week/season/holiday/user radio button all Date type to be searched
userdate   text   Fill this field if select "user date", must be name of month, year, week, season or holiday
listdisp 2 selection 2 Display format which is HTML current
taporface   checkbox checked display result in a new window without graphics interface (default) or with taporware interface in the same window

Use Date Finder TAPoRware Tool in Your Web Page

You can add a button in your web page to list all the HTML tag in that page by call TAPoRware cgi script.

Here is the code for the tool button interface:

<form method="post" name="htmlForm" enctype="multipart/form-data" target="_blank" action="http://taporware.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/cgi-bin/prototype/hdatefinder.cgi" onsubmit="document.htmlForm.htmlurl.value=document.location.href">

<input type="hidden" name="source" value="url" />

<input type="hidden" name="htmlurl" />

<input type="hidden" name="freetext" value="yes"/>

<input type="hidden" name="tagtext" value="body" />

<input type="hidden" name="date" value="all" />

<input type="hidden" name="listdisp" value="2" />

<input type="hidden" name="taporface" value="same" />

<input type="submit" name="doit" value="Find Dates" />

</form>

Web Service Interface

Taporware provides web services to any non-benefit organizations. here is the taporware web services information:

  • Endpoint URL: http://taporware.mcmaster.ca:9982
  • Service URI: http://taporware.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/webservice
  • Service Method: date_finder_HTML
  • parameters:
    • htmlInput -- any html string
    • element -- any html element (tag) name or multiple html element name separated by comma
    • dateOption -- a selection list of date formats user can select. the selections are; all date, years, months, weeks, seasons, holidays and user date with the values of all/year/month/week/season/holiday/user respectively.
    • userDate -- name of year, month, week day, etc.
    • outFormat -- value is html since only HTML format is support currently.

Known Bugs

To Do

-- LianYan - 29 Mar 2007

Use this box to quickly add a comment to the page.

more options...