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Scanning a page for certain elements

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Jan 14.2009

I’m new to javascript but am beginning to implement my ideas from scratch rather than fiddle with existing code.

I have thought of an application which would require the script to look at a page which would be outside the domain from which my script resides.

I want it to scan through this page, look for <a> elements with specific classes on them, and store the text in between these <a> tags in an array.

From then on I would be clear on what to do.

If this sounds possible, could you point me in the right direction to achieve this?

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JavaScript

4 Comments(s) ↴

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@slaughtersJan 14.2009 — JavaScript can not do this.

Do a Google search on page or screen "scraping" for some server side answers.
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@mrhooJan 14.2009 — You'll need to read files that are not in your domain with a script on the server, javascript alone can only read local files.
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@voidvectorJan 14.2009 — Website-based JavaScript is not allowed to access content from another website. This is done to prevent exploits using cross-site scripting.

Say you recently visited your banking website, and forgot to log off, if this cross-site security wasn't in place, there will be nothing to stop a malicious website from displaying your bank's website in a frame and grab all your credentials.
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@ThomasWauthorJan 14.2009 — yeah I had a feeling this might be the case I guess the security implications would be ridiculous if javascript could do this, im turning to PHP for screen scraping methods now.
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