Web Scraping with Matlab
In today's tutorial, we'll dive into web scraping using Matlab in a fun and approachable way.
First things first, let's clarify what web scraping is. Simply put, it's the process of extracting information from a web page by reading its content and storing it in a variable within the Matlab workspace or even in a file on your computer. This allows you to process the text from the page with a script, making it easy to search for specific details and extract valuable data
Ready to give it a try? Let's start by using the urlread() function to read and download a web page:
>> page=urlread('https://www.eage.it')
Just type the URL of the web page you want to download between the round brackets.
The urlread() function will do the heavy lifting, reading the online content of the web page and saving it in the Matlab variable called 'page'.
But what if you want to save the content of the page as a file?
No worries! We've got you covered with the urlwrite() function.
>> urlwrite('https://www.eage.it', 'example.dat')
The urlwrite() function needs two parameters within the round brackets:
- The URL of the web page or the online document
- The name of the file where you'd like to save the content
The function will then read the content of the page and save it to the specified file in the Matlab working directory on your computer.
In our example, the file name is "example.dat".
Keep in mind that for both of these web scraping functions, you'll need an active internet connection to access the online content.
Once you've saved the content of the page to a file, you're all set to process the information! Just open it up like any regular text file and get ready to uncover those hidden gems. Happy web scraping!
