urlfilter

Scrape numbers from web page

Syntax

num = urlfilter(URL,target,numNumbers,direction)

Description

num = urlfilter(URL,target,numNumbers,direction) returns numNumbers of numbers that appear after or before the target string target, depending on the value of direction. Numbers with a decimal point are scanned as a single number. All other non numeric characters are treated as number separators.

Examples

Retrieve the Number after a String

Retrieve the first number after the string 'Latitude / Longitude' on a specified web page.

url = 'https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/219018692';
target= 'Latitude / Longitude';
num = urlfilter(url,target)

num =

   36.5884

Retrieve Multiple Numbers after a String

Retrieve the first three numbers after the string 'Dow' on a specified web page.

url = 'https://www.marketwatch.com/';
target = 'Dow';
nums = urlfilter(url,target,3)

nums =

   1.0e+04 *

    2.3568   -0.0535   -0.0002 

These numbers correspond to the present value of the Dow, the point change, and percentage change for the day, respectively.

Input Arguments

URL — URL to scrape number from

character vector | string

URL to scrape numbers from, specified as a string.

target — Target to scrape

character vector | string

Target in the specified URL to scrape data, specified as a string.

numNumbers — Number of values to read after the target string

1 (default) | numeric

Numbers to read after target on the specified URL. specified as a numeric value. The algorithm continues grabbing numbers until the specified numNumbers are grabbed or the call reaches end of the file.

direction — URL read direction

‘forward’ (default) | 'backward'

URL read direction, specified as a string value. Valid values are 'forward' or 'backward'. The read command reads in the specified direction, starting from the target string.

Output Arguments

num — Target number

numeric

Target number or numbers, returned as a numeric value or vector. If no optional arguments are specified, the command returns the first number after the target string.