Search on Webside, copy a line and extract information from the line to put it on a variable

Hello

You may try something like this.

_main() on _main() do shell script "curl -s 'http://wx.ivao.aero/metar.php' | perl -lne 'print qq($1 $2) if /^LOWW \\S+ (...)(..)KT/'" set rr to result's words repeat with r in rr set r's contents to 0 + r end repeat set {a, b} to rr tell application "Numbers" tell document 1's sheet 1's table 1 set cell "A2"'s value to a set cell "B2"'s value to b end tell end tell end _main

Good luck,

H

Hello

What you need to know is regular expression pattern matching. Since this script uses Perl, you can search Google by keywords:

Perl regular expression

and will get ample examples.

Here're some fundamental documents you might explore.

perlrequick - Perl regular expressions quick start

http://perldoc.perl.org/perlrequick.html

perlretut - Perl regular expressions tutorial

http://perldoc.perl.org/perlretut.html

perlre - Perl regular expressions

http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html

Good luck,

H

PS. In the provided AppleScript script, the Perl script invoked via do shell script command is quoted – specifically \ is quoted as \\. Generally, two characters must be quoted in AppleScript string literal, which are " (quotation) and \ (backslash) and quoted as \" and \\ respectively. This quoting has nothing to do with Perl.

The original command line statement to run Perl script by Perl interpreter is as follows.

perl -lne 'print qq($1 $2) if /^LOWW \S+ (...)(..)KT/'

EDIT: added PS.

[removed - /viking]

Hello

To extract the 4-digit number following Q, the shell script will be like this:

#!/bin/bash # e.g., # LOWW 311320Z 15019KT CAVOK 34/10 Q1013 NOSIG curl -s 'http://wx.ivao.aero/metar.php' | perl -lne 'print qq($1) if /^LOWW \S+ \S+ \S+ \S+ Q(....)/'

And its AppleScript wrapper is like this:

_main() on _main() do shell script "curl -s 'http://wx.ivao.aero/metar.php' | perl -lne 'print qq($1) if /^LOWW \\S+ \\S+ \\S+ \\S+ Q(....)/'" set c to result --return c -- for test tell application "Numbers" tell document 1's sheet 1's table 1 set cell "C2"'s value to c end tell end tell end _main

By the way, to extract all three numbers, you may use this single shell script:

#!/bin/bash # e.g., # LOWW 311320Z 15019KT CAVOK 34/10 Q1013 NOSIG curl -s 'http://wx.ivao.aero/metar.php' | perl -lne 'print qq($1 $2 $3) if /^LOWW \S+ (...)(..)KT \S+ \S+ Q(....)/'

And its AppleScript wrapper is like this:

_main() on _main() do shell script "curl -s 'http://wx.ivao.aero/metar.php' | perl -lne 'print qq($1 $2 $3) if /^LOWW \\S+ (...)(..)KT \\S+ \\S+ Q(....)/'" set {a, b, c} to result's words --return {a, b, c} -- for test tell application "Numbers" tell document 1's sheet 1's table 1 set cell "A2"'s value to a set cell "B2"'s value to b set cell "C2"'s value to c end tell end tell end _main

* I have changed AppleScript script a little so that it now extracts values as text, for I guess these numbers are actually some id's of which leading zero's should be preserved.

Hope this may help you get the knack.

H

Hiroto,

That Metar field for wind direction, and wind speed in knots, can also include wind gust data (e.g. 15015G25KT) where 150 is the direction, 15 is the steady wind speed, and G25 indicates that the wind is gusting to 25 knots. Though not in (LOWW) Vienna, Austria, it is possible that in some locations, the wind and gust speeds could be 3-digit values.

Currently, if that Metar field changes to gust information, your current Perl capture for that field as written, will return nothing.

Hello VikingOSX,

Well, my answer is only prescribed for question as specified, especially when I have no domain knowledge. Maybe I'm a little too lazy... 😉

Regards,

H

Hello Ben L.

You're quite welcome! 🙂

Now that I have looked into basics of METAR and realised that its format is variable and rather loose, here's revised script to be safer in extracting values. It will extract wind direction (ddd), wind speed (ss), gust speed (gg) and atmospheric pressure (qqqq). When there's no gust speed in record, its value is empty string.

Shell script:

#!/bin/bash # e.g., # LOWW 311320Z 15019KT CAVOK 34/10 Q1013 NOSIG # LOWW 311320Z 15019G33KT CAVOK 34/10 Q1013 NOSIG curl -s 'http://wx.ivao.aero/metar.php' | perl -lne 'print qq($1;$2;$3;$4) if /^LOWW \S+ (...)(..)(?:G(..))?KT .*? Q([0-9]{4})/'

AppleScript wrapper with additional code for Numbers:

_main() on _main() do shell script "curl -s 'http://wx.ivao.aero/metar.php' | perl -lne 'print qq($1;$2;$3;$4) if /^LOWW \\S+ (...)(..)(?:G(..))?KT .*? Q([0-9]{4})/'" set r to result set {astid0, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, {";"}} set rr to r's text items set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid0 if (count rr) < 4 then error "No entry is found." number 8000 set {ddd, ss, gg, qqqq} to rr --return {ddd, ss, gg, qqqq} -- for test tell application "Numbers" tell document 1's sheet 1's table 1 set cell "A2"'s value to ddd -- wind direction [degree] set cell "B2"'s value to ss -- wind speed [knot] set cell "C2"'s value to gg -- gust speed [knot] set cell "D2"'s value to qqqq -- atmospheric pressure [hPa] end tell end tell end _main

All the best,

Hiroto

Well, like you, I reviewed the Metar field specifications, examples, and explanations. The data fields can change like the floor of a snake pit. I certainly wasn't finding fault with your solution to the original specification, as Ben stated it. Your updates are equally good.