robot to read html from other websites

would like to know if there is a way for me to write a php script that would behave like a robot and read html content from other websites. Lets say i was selling something and i wanted to know what my competitors are pricing their products at.... is there a possiblity to write a php script that would help me do that.

Very simple. The only thing you would need to do to keep it active is to set it to run as a scheduled task/cron job.

EDIT: You already know how to read files, right? I'm assuming that you've at least gotten that far in PHP.

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Originally Posted by PeejAvery

Very simple. The only thing you would need to do to keep it active is to set it to run as a scheduled task/cron job.

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Yes i do know about cron jobs but how would i write a script to go in and read another site's html content? I have no clue on how to do this and i did google it but i guess i wasn't using the right words to get me to something interesting and helpful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PeejAvery

Very simple. The only thing you would need to do to keep it active is to set it to run as a scheduled task/cron job.

EDIT: You already know how to read files, right? I'm assuming that you've at least gotten that far in PHP.

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yes i do know how to read files, but would that be the same as reading a webpage as well?

The reading of the file would be the exact same. Parsing would just have to be done using regular expressions to match specific X/HTML tags.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PeejAvery

The reading of the file would be the exact same. Parsing would just have to be done using regular expressions to match specific X/HTML tags.

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oh i never thought it would be that easy... i am going to try out a few things and will post if i get into trouble which most probably i will. tx.