Web Scraping which may also be called screen scraping or web data extraction is a way to extract huge amounts of data from websites where the data can be extracted and saved to a local file on your computer or to a database file or in spreadsheet format.
Data on most websites can only be seen on a web browser, like data listings at yellow pages directories, real estate sites, social networks, online shopping sites, etc. Most won’t allow you to simply have a copy of the data to look at on your computer. This makes the only option to manually copy and paste it from your browser to a local file on your PC. This is very time-consuming so there is another option. Web scraping tools automate it, so you don’t have to manually copy it. Web Scraping software will do the same thing in a way less time. Web Scraping software usually saves the data straight to a local file on your computer with no work on your part!
Instant Web Scraping With Java by Ryan Mitchell
This is an excellent reference for web scrapers. This book contains very short web scraping procedures and techniques using Java. The book focuses on “Instant Web Scraping with Java”. Instant Web Scraping is excellent for starters who do not know a great deal about Java but are willing to learn. Step by step detailed instructions explains the Java language and how it is used as well as benefits.
Java is often thought of as a stuffy enterprise language, while web scraping is the often-murky domain of scripting languages. By combining the robustness and extensibility of Java with the flexibility and power of web scraping, we can create immensely useful tools that can solve very difficult problems.
Instant Web Scraping with Java will guide you, step by step, through setting up your Java environment. You will also learn how to write simple web scrapers and distributed networks of crawlers. Throughout the book, we will provide useful tips, out-of-the-box working code, and additional resources to build expert knowledge.
Instant Web Scraping with Java is aimed at developers who, while not necessarily familiar with Java, are at least ready to dive into the complexities of this language with simple, step-by-step instructions leading the way. It is assumed that you have at least an intermediate knowledge of HTML, some knowledge of MySQL, and access to an Internet-connected computer while doing most of the exercises (after all, scraping the Web is difficult if your code can’ t get online!)
Ultimate Guide to Web Scraping by Hartley Brody
This book provides all the tips and tricks by the author, Hartley Brody has learned in the field. The Ultimate Guide to Web Scraping is designed to help users hone and perfect their web scraping skills. The book includes sample code as well.
The author also explores and asserts while despite some common complaints, web scraping is a valid way to get data and content and why! Learning how data is sent from a website to computer end user’s computer and is parsed, and how you can use web scraping to intercept this process and get data you are looking for! In short understanding web technologies, finding and extracting data is what this book is all about and a must-read for anyone with these goals in mind!
You can see that web scraping books can be a very valuable thing to read and it is valuable to know how to do web scraping, especially if you own a business. These books should give you options for learning the tricks of the trade even if you have never done any programming before.
