Using curl and POST requests to automate data retrieval from a website

Problem: A site contains data which is of interest to us. The data is uniformly structured and available for examination by the general public (i.e. no login required) but is not automatically accessible, i.e. viewing it requires repetitive user interaction (such as setting a date range, clicking a ‘submit’ button, etc). In addition, usually the […]

Continue reading


WordPress Quick Tips: background color, special chars

To set special attributes of a paragraph e.g. the background, font typeface, color and size, etc enclose your paragraph in a <div> tag, e.g.: <div style=”background-color:black;color:red;font-size:0.75em;font-family:Courier”> Your paragraph goes here. It will use a Courier font, 75% of the normal size, and the text will be red on a black background…</div> Using the above settings […]

Continue reading